As the former AEA President, I know exactly how much control we have over city and state government.
Trust me....it would be way different if we did.  Yes, we're kind of organized.  We have a lot of members that share some common interests.
The term "fleecing" is an interesting term for people that get up and go to work every day to earn their checks.  For all the lavish payments we get, we have to go out of state every year to recruit people to come stand in front of classes of 35 and sometimes more than 40 students.
If we're so good at fleecing, why isn't there a line of people waiting to do these jobs?