How much work does a laboratory technician have to do to get his/her name on a paper?

If you make a significant contribution in the intellectual work, you deserve mentioning. If all you do is apply standard methods for gathering data, that somebody else told you to gather, then no, you don't deserve mentioning. Hopefully you get a paycheck though.

If the lab technicians' work is good, the senior team should include him/her on the authorship list.

*Chuckles* Welcome to the real world,,,,,and here's your sign. However, seriously- you need the Ph.D or the Masters level before you can publish your own stuff or that anyone would pay attention to it. Remember in the world of acdemia- its "Publish or Perish" Good Luck

A laboratory technician is a slavey. They do work which is generally low level mechanical work. It usually doesnt require much training, or in fact, much in the way of brains. So, unless their boss is a really, really good guy or they put out for him, they arent going to get any of the glory. Lab Technologists are often certified professionals, often with M.S. degrees. They help design experiments and often are included in the list of authors as a courtesy.

a tech will never be first author on a paper however, as long as you contribute to the experiments, your name should be on there somewhere (author or acknowledgment). It all depends on the PI of the lab your working in. Its courteous for them to put your name on it but they don't have to.

sure, it deserves an answer...simply out, it will never happen, ever...you are just a cog in the data gathering wheel...

It's really at the whim of the PI. In theory, an RA should be mentioned if he or she contributed intellectually to the work, not just doing grunt labor. But some PIs will give authorship to RAs who only do routine work, and some PIs won't give authorship to RAs who do contribute intellectually. Also, what can happen is if there are a lot of collaborators, and there are already too many authors on the paper, the RAs are theones who are going to be kicked off, not the PhDs.

It always depends on the professor who runs the lab. I worked in a lab where the prof. was pretty easygoing, and ended up third author on a paper. If you've performed essential services, and provided input on conclusions or further experimentation, then ask your boss (grad student, postdoc, whatever) to put your name on the paper.

I don't think you have an accurate picture of how a lab works. A typical U.S. university biology lab might have, say, 12 members: The professor/boss 3 post docs - M.D.s or Ph.D.s who don't yet have their own labs 4 grad students 2 undergraduate lab helpers 2 technicians and perhaps a secretary for the boss and a lab manager to organize how it all runs. For a small lab, half all the numbers; for a large lab, double all the numbers except the 2 techs, who might become 3. The technicians are generally 5 day, 40 hour employees who take care of routine chores like making media and pouring culture plates, or who are used to pursue the bosses own ideas. The grad students and post docs will work anywhere from 50 - 80 hours per week including weekends, plus they will be reading and writing papers, analyzing data, assembling presentations, networking with other students/post docs and talking science, etc. during their home time. They also often do teaching on the side. As a result, almost all the data, ideas, publications, etc. are a direct result of the work the students/post docs do, not the technicians. And since a student/post doc has the incentive/pressure that their future depends on his or her own publications, and a student/post doc works twice as many hours at half the pay and benefits of a technician, the bosses prefer to use students/post docs to move the lab forward. It depends on the lab and the people, of course, but I do think this is typical. Aside from that, to get on a paper, one is usually expected to have contributed meaningfully to the intellectual basis of the work, not to have poured the agarose plates or made the microscope slides that were used. Thus, in many situations, lab technicians don't make it on to the papers based on merit, unless they are really exceptional - though there are certainly exceptional techs out there, and they do get on papers. On the other hand, there are also a lot of professors who will allow technicians to be included as authors as a reward for the work, even though they really weren't doing the same sorts of work the other authors were. It is a tough system and I would guess that everyone in it has been screwed over at least once or twice, but hey, life is tough.