Medical Technologist Forum - Unionize the Laboratory ?: [QUOTE who="Small_Town_CLS in Scottsbluf...

[QUOTE who="Small_Town_CLS in Scottsbluff, Nebraska"]ASCP would never back a union of Medical Technologists because it represents Pathologists! Having your ASCP certification simply means that a society of pathologists have recognized our ability to do a better job in the lab . The lab is headed by pathologists with a budget. Do you really think they want us to get a higher wage that cuts into the lab budget? The answer may be a union but only to influence the hospitals themselves to increase the lab's budget for higher pay. ASCP could care less what we make unless they could charge more for testing. A government intervention without a union would be a better way to go but how really? Nurses have a face in the hospital and are represent by Nurses. Medical Technologist have no such face and no such representation within our own title. Until the day that labs are ran by Medical Techs and not Pathologists this will always be the way it goes. I don't see that changing anytime soon. Maybe it should. Then the patholigists can get paid more as well by getting a referal fee for every test signed off by the pathologists. $$$$[/QUOTE] It's a vicious cycle for Medical Technologists. There is no leadership in our industry because we don't regulate ourselves. If we are under the whip of a more powerful group of professionals we will never develop the leadership skills needed to break that cycle and fight for our rights. If there is a profession out there that needs a union, it is the clinical laboratory professionals.