The Order of the Authors Names - (Nov/06/2007 )
In my papers, my technicians are always in the author list. it doesn't matter if they contributed little or more as they are responsible for the smooth running of the lab and many times the experiments and results.
Some times, the second author might have contributed more to the paper than the first author but is still the second author without even equal contribution asterix because of lab politics. Also many authors are included in the list just because they are the PI's friends or even relatives. When my PI can include some weirdos in the authors list, I should be able to have my technicians name also in the list.
There is always lot of politics in science due to authorship. If you have genuinely worked the most for a paper, get your name as the first author.
Ok, here is the summary I found
source: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=562
Summary of reality !!! 
I like this kind of critics
but unmentioned are those who contributed to the paper and are NOT in the author listI think most universities or grant providers advice good publication practice; in the case of conflicts, there are commissions which try to mediate
This issue of The Scientist carries an article on this topic with the title " Bringing Order to Authorship - How to resolve authorship disputes - and avoid them altogether". It is especially for postdocs how to deal with authorship issues. The article is freely accessible.
I think that almost all institutions have authorship guidelines and they are usually based on the Vancouver protocol... but whether they are strictly adhered to is a totally different issue. If you read through the protocol, you'd realise that those with the intellectual contributions i.e. planning the experiments, analysing of data, writing the draft etc. are deemed the "rightful"l authors.
Technical assistance, procurement of funds or being head of the dept. or group officially doesn't make one an author. Also an author should be able to defend the work. If everyone behaves ethically, there shouldn't be any conflicts but that's not the reality. I think there's a lot of trading favors (I give you some o' mine if you give me some o'yours), bullying (big fish thumps little fish) and politics involved in this. I know a lab who is now embroiled in an even more complex situation...a multicenter interdisciplinary study involving clinicians and basic scientists and it's turning into to be a real mess. Are doctors who recruit patients into the study also considered authors, what about the epidemiologist who did the stats, the diagnosticians who did the clinical tests etc.
There's also one practice I've heard about that sounds a bit dodgy to me...that of a PI asking someone to do an experiment for a figure so he/she would become a co-author in another person's paper even if it's not their own topic. Is this ethical at all?
It would be good to hear more publicised cases about these conflicts to bring the issue into the forefront and that more and more journals would be pushing for increased transparency and more accountability regarding paper authorship.
Thank you bioforum for the article.