Building on prior justice theories and Motivated Identity Construction Theory, this paper seeks to map identity motives onto justice motives to explain how employees respond to organizational injustice. Both justice and identity are socially constructed, and in this paper, we argue that their importance stems from the same underlying motives that make individuals care about them. Justice theories emphasize instrumental, relational, and moral motives. Motivated Identity Construction Theory similarly identifies six core identity motives: efficacy, distinctiveness, belonging, self-esteem, meaning, and continuity. These perspectives converge, such that injustice frustrates identity motives and initiates withdrawal responses. Employees often react to injustice with psychological withdrawal such as acquiescent silence and then with cognitive withdrawal in the form of turnover intention. We further argue that these responses are shaped by societal evaluations of occupations that influence which identity motives become most salient. Occupational social value (OSV), the perceived contribution of an occupation to society (e.g. paramedics, firefighters) supports meaning and continuity motives (moral justice motives) and helps employees sustain purpose despite injustice. OSV therefore buffers the effect of injustice on turnover intention by anchoring identity in societal recognition. Yet this buffering is conditional. Occupational prestige (OP), the societal respect accorded to an occupation (e.g. surgeons, Supreme Court judges), heightens efficacy and distinctiveness motives (instrumental justice motives). We theorize that, in high OSV and OP occupations, meaning is tightly coupled with competence, so injustice that undermines recognition of efficacy and distinctiveness also erodes meaning and continuity. We test these hypotheses using a three-wave, time-lagged survey of 411 UK employees combined with externally sourced societal ratings of OSV and OP. Results support our theorizing, showing that injustice predicts turnover intention through silence, buffered by OSV but with this buffer diminished when OP is high.