Comment by dragonwriter
11 years ago
The AMA and ABA aren't labor unions; outside of government service -- where programmers are also often unionized, too -- doctors and lawyers generally don't have labor unions.
11 years ago
The AMA and ABA aren't labor unions; outside of government service -- where programmers are also often unionized, too -- doctors and lawyers generally don't have labor unions.
How exactly are they not unions? They lobby for legislation to erect barriers to entry to reduce competition and secure higher wages for their members. The ABA was actually the target of an anti-trust investigation by the Justice Department that resulted in them pleading guilty and paying a fine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Bar_Association#Antitr...
The AMA (and AAMC, and the licensing boards) should be dealt with the same way, ideally even more harshly.
All your post did was underline just how effective these professions are relative to programmers at securing higher incomes and greater prestige and shaping their public perception.
Lobbying for legislation is a tangential part of what a labor union does, and lots of organizations that aren't labor unions also do that. Labor unions first and foremost do collective bargaining on behalf of employees with the business owners who employ them. ABA and AMA don't do that.
ABA and AMA are professional associations, like ACM, that happen to have effective lobbying arms, and their members are often independent business owners rather than employees.
You must not know many doctors.