I'm an almost 2 years experienced programmer, currently working as a team lead in my company. I'm the above average, geek programmer who friends and colleagues generally thinks highly of. And my company doesn't like to let me go.
One of my friends, a junior programmer in my company, is talented, but his last project didn't go smooth enough. So the company extended his probation period and they are planning to pay him only a very nominal increment. So he told the management that he is resigning unless he gets this much (say 1000, currency doesn't matter) increment. Upon this, the company decided to let him go.
The person is my friend and I'm kind of a mentor to him. I told the management that I will be leaving also if he is not staying. I'm waiting for the company's final decision, which I hope will come in a few hours.
But I want to know if what I'm doing is unethical - professionally or else. People bargain for salary hike; I'm bargaining for my friend's job. Is this wrong?
UPDATE: I asked this question 2 years ago and stumbled into it accidentally today and thought of updating what happened.
The company made him a slightly better offer regarding increment, which still wasn't good enough. So he quit and I also did after a couple of days. After that we decided to take some time off and did freelancing together for around 2 months and partied away the days. After that, he joined for a better job in a better company with a 100% hike.
I spent another 6 months playing around (I was 23yrs then) getting involved in some open source projects and joined my current company some 6 months ago with more than double my previous salary.
My decision was probably stupid and I wouldn't advice anyone to do stuff like that. But in my case, I'm glad I did it.