To accept the point of view you describe, they'd have to accept that they were employees with a management role. Where as we are employees with some other (obviously less valuable

) one. They'd have to accept equivalent values. That they were interchangeable, disposable, out-sourceable parts of a large an unfeeling edifice created to maximise profit.
In general they find that too scary to contemplate.
So you get this sort of delusion slanted to feed their fiction.
Counter-offers, hiring negotiation, some one like me interviewing them at an interview pierce this comforting fantasy.
And they don't like it...
So you are uncomfortably correct.