I switched from the helpdesk at my first job to being a senior sysadmin working with the highest paid people on site for my gig. My company wanted to give me ~2% raises a year from the helpdesk wage to what was the average for my new position, vs. bumping me up to the avg salary for the new position when I switched teams.
So I would have worked side by site with my peers for ~10 years to catch up to what I should have been paid walking in the door. Since they wouldn't pay me what I should have been worth I quit.
Experiences similar to yours are the biggest reason I'm abandoning a 10+ year career along the same path. Everyone that I've ever known in helpdesk or admin has been completely shit on by an employer with regard to compensation; myself included. I'd say it probably happens more frequently than 1/3 of the time too.
I think the email is being latched on as a motivator too much in this case (because Oracle is obviously evil).
The policy more likely is: We pay X dollars for position Y in the USA, and less than X dollars for position Y in India per company policy. There isn't anything illegal about that. Also there isn't anything illegal about not bumping up his salary if he moved from India to the USA (even though I don't agree with this).
Pretty sure whites are paid less than east Asians for same job in US.
Interestingly, the US Supreme Court ruled Asian Indians to be Caucasian, probably white, but not really white. Pretty tragicomic stuff, the old race based citizenship requirements.
I switched from the helpdesk at my first job to being a senior sysadmin working with the highest paid people on site for my gig. My company wanted to give me ~2% raises a year from the helpdesk wage to what was the average for my new position, vs. bumping me up to the avg salary for the new position when I switched teams.
So I would have worked side by site with my peers for ~10 years to catch up to what I should have been paid walking in the door. Since they wouldn't pay me what I should have been worth I quit.