I don't think I am. Spanish employees of Google benefit just as much from Spanish employment law as Jose's Web Dev Shop. It's the purest comparison considering it's within the exact same country.

Unfortunately my landlord does not agree and wants his payment in actual money, and so do a lot of services we rely on to live.

While this sounds like great philosophical advice, in practice big salaries do attract employees regardless. If you want to solve the "brain drain to American companies" problem, ignoring the fact that they pay better isn't likely to help.