Unfortunately there are a lot of jobs in North America that are stated as 9-5 but include unpaid on-call and overtime. There are laws that make it so that IT does not have to be paid overtime.

I have to disagree with this. Most IT jobs in the U.S. aren't 9-5. Every place I've interviewed have always hinted at the fact that it's not a 40 hour a week job. This may sound jaded, but companies really do expect to get more than what they pay for, and it's not just the silicon valley ones. I think the real issue is that most programmers feel a dedication and passion to what they do and they want to see the project succeed, and so the get taken advantage of.

It's ridiculous to frame it like that. I'm sure most surgeons also want to make sure their patients benefit from a surgery, but I'm sure they don't get taken advantage of.