You're willing to go the extent of accusing people you never met nor have any idea who and how they are of being incompetent at a job you don't even know just to preserve your cognitive dissonance.
> Important enough that your manager wants to secure you as part of the team.
Straight out of college I worked at a place where they handed me a 1 year contract where I was paid below market rate. When I was reaching the end of my contract I asked for a meeting to review my salary. I had a meeting but it's outcome was a firm "we want you here but we will only offer you the same pay". I sat on that and on the day before my auto renewal would kick in I handed my resignation. I was immediately pulled into a meeting with my manager where they promply offered me over 20% pay hike.
Do you honestly believe I only gained importance the moment I resigned? They were the same people who said a few days earlier in no unclear terms I was not getting a raise.
The most ridiculous aspect of your unfounded personal belief is this idea there's this universal performance evaluation law where every manager and every boss is binded to hand over rigorous pay adjustments reflecting anyone's performance, and that there is no such thing as being exploited. Back in the real world, the whole economy revolves around people trying to get more value while paying less, and there's a almost universal pressure to not only eliminate any kind of leverage from employees but also make them perfectly replaceable cogs in their machine. You are pressured to not discuss salary with your peers, let alone other employees. You get what you are paid, and you should feel happy for it. If you work hard that just means your boss is getting more returns over his low investment.