quick theory on an Anonymous Union of Pricing Agreement based on Post-Data:

Although a Profession cannot have a Union (more of less) - Anti-Trust Law, linked to AIA doc here andlink to AIA summary here , we can make determinations with historical data which in the past was not as available nor as trusted nor as expediently available in a public forum (the internet).

Here are some sources that are out there:

Determining Appropriate Fees for the Services of an Architect

http://architecturalfees.com/

Home Advisor

and the Mal-Practice blog on Archinect (this link is a really good one)

This is all post-data.  Data after the fact, but you could assemble this post data at a much faster rate like HomeAdvisor, keep it anonymous like the poll, but break it down into categories like the first two links do or your Salary Poll did  in general.  So that the next time I go up for a job I have little experience in I know what the others charge.   How do you get experience in work you've never done before? Well most would underbid either intentionally or without the knowledge of what is actually involved to say execute an Airport (assuming you have never done one), hence the age old - 10%, we just charge 10% on everything - because we don't actually know.

It's not a Union if we are all just reading the papers. 

You could also do or accidentally allow (like wikileaks) what insidearch.org did same time your poll was around which pretty much tabloid manner allowed exploiting the exploiters but I think was eventually hacked or shutdown? 

How many times have your potential clients showed you other professionals fee proposals?  You could report those as well.  Fill in poll, fee proposal by others at such and such rates.

How many cities allow you to confirm who eventually filed the job? You could even list, I bid this but lost, was too high.  You could report fee proposals that lost as well.

You may also wonder, would an architect really tell other architects what they are charging to for a job many might be up against? This is pretty much how the Salary Poll used to happen in bars.  "Well I work for big douch bag and actually get paid!" (not telling truth) and other person goes "Well I work never heard of him but I have health insurances and make a little less than you." (telling the truth).  The latter always goes home and wonders - "What am I doing with my life?"....The former usually changes careers, all was bullshit anyway...

Hi @Ancient - thanks for the h/t. One thing to understand about the AIA's fee schedule history: the AIA was singled out in the early 1970's to be a 'test case' for the Department of Justice, who was looking at a variety of professional organizations as potentially "stifling competition". The AIA's fee guide at the time was just that - a guide, that ranked project types and corresponding fee percentages, largely tied to complexity and size. The applicability of the fee schedules worked like the one the Realtor (brand organization, not just any broker) group still uses - it was a minimum that a member in good standing could take to do the work. It absolutely was designed to protect architect's from racing each other to the bottom on fees. 

After the DOJ pursued charges against the AIA (who, really, was probably picked on because we don't donate as much politically as the Bar Association, Realtors, or just about anyone else), they entered into an agreement whereby they would drop the requirement to adhere to the schedule and would cease to publish the schedules. About a decade later, a single AIA chapter accidentally mailed out a copy of their old schedules to members, triggering the DOJ to come down like a bag of bricks on the AIA for violating the agreement. The fine that the AIA paid to settle that case nearly bankrupted it. Since then, it's been beyond taboo to talk about fees within AIA, something that is rather unfortunate. However, anyone outside AIA can openly discuss fees - and AIA members can certainly discuss fees outside the formal organizational setting - and there's plenty of management companies that research fees and will gladly share their intel for a price. There's plenty of books with good, solid practices to generate more revenue as a design firm. 

None of the above would have any bearing on whether unions could be started within architecture firms. It's just not going to happen. In the same way it won't happen with doctors, lawyers, etc. 

So, if you're really interested in knowing how to negotiate better fees, knowing what your competitors charge is helpful but knowing your own value proposition is much better. 

As a side, closing note - many state agencies still have fee schedules that are largely derived from the old AIA schedules. There's absolutely nothing prohibiting their use by a state, which is a horrific injustice in that most of them are set so low as to make negotiations back to something more reasonable difficult at best. If you want to see on example, look here.

Home advisor is fake news. An architect costs 8-10% of construction costs yet averages $5,000. Where do houses cost $50,000?