Oh, I agree that having different packages can cause discontent, and makes it harder overall for the company to manage. Merging companies is hard. But equally

Oh, I agree that having different packages can cause discontent, and makes it harder overall for the company to manage. Merging companies is hard. But equally, taking away benefits, particularly ones that employees really care about, is also a recipe for discontent. I remember when IBM bought Lotus. For a long time people thought that spelled the end, as IBM had a long run of buying companies and destroying all the value in them. They tried a different approach with Lotus. As a result, the Lotus employees had significantly better benefits in some ways than the IBM employees. My friend who came from Lotus drove a Jaguar. His manager from IBM had a low end BMW, as the car allowances were different. Pension provision also different. This situation persisted right up until IBM sold Lotus stuff to HCL a couple of years back. So it is possible to merge even big companies and maintain different benefit systems. For 20 years!