I don't know any general answers, but here are some scenarios: * Your colleague who did not realise that they were being highly underpaid gets a reasonable off

I don't know any general answers, but here are some scenarios: * Your colleague who did not realise that they were being highly underpaid gets a reasonable offer from another company and leaves. They were a lynchpin in the organisation and the whole company goes under. You now earn zero salary. If they were more aware of others salaries within your company they may have renegotiated and stayed. * After years of hidden salaries within the company, some colleagues salaries are leaked. What was previously imagined to be an equitable workplace is now exposed to be highly inequitable. This is felt to be a betrayal of trust by many and sows discontent within the company. The previously happy workplace is now a minefield of distrust and back-room back-stabbing. Now everyone is stressed. This situation would have never arisen if salaries were disclosed from the start. * An elite of skilled negotiators emerges within the company that far out-earns the contingent of members whose domain-skills would grant them the greater reward in a meritocracy. This leads to a bozo-effect as they rise in the ranks due to greater financial freedom. Nobody can quite pinpoint where it all started going wrong. This transition would have been transparent in a disclosed-salary scenario, and would have been suppressed. * Your conscience is plagued by guilt about the possibility that you might be robbing your equally deserving peers of their share of the pie. You don't sleep so well. If you knew that they were earning the same as you you could sleep better. You get the idea.