I am arguing that workers being laid off is bad for workers but, many times, is good for management as it can achieve short-term profitability improvements.

If this is the part of my statement, above, which you believe is "horseshit" (and, perhaps, you might want to be a little more polite if you wish to engage in good-faith discussions) I could point you to dozens of market-leading companies that have recently laid off tens of thousands of workers and then blown away their Wall Street estimates. This has resulted in share-price improvements for their firms... and, accordingly, resulted in additional bonuses for management.

Given a climate that rewards management at the best firms for layoffs, I felt like it might have been a bit tone-deaf to position a retention tool as a "bad outcome" (modest or otherwise).

Too much retention doesn't seem to be a problem for Anglo-American businesses at the moment. Quite the contrary.