If British Columbia teachers want to know why their demands for "market wage adjustments" will hit a brick wall in negotiations, they need look no further than their own union. The British Columbia Teachers Federation, which has long bashed the free market, free trade, and capitalism in general, wants a "market adjustment" of 10 percent in addition to other wage demands. Too bad BCTF publications are full of anti-wealth creation rhetoric that undercuts any claim the union puts forward for market-based adjustments.

It should not be necessary to point this out, but since politics in B.C. can often decline to personal shots, potential critics should be aware that I spent all of my school years in the public system, and have nothing but the highest regard for teachers themselves. (If 1980s-era Kelowna high school teachers Mssrs. Chalk, O'Donnell, Clark, Johnson, and Clarke read this, note that you were great instructors.)

The possibility for cheap shot responses now aside, markets are based on choices, but when in 1994, Surrey wanted to create traditional schools - within the public school system - the then president of the local teachers' association lobbied against such choice. David Chudnovsky, present-day head of the BCTF, imitated such opposition earlier this year when he opposed the appointment of Emery Dosdall as the new deputy minister for education. Dosdall, the former superintendent for Edmonton Public Schools, is widely lauded for introducing an excellent choice-based system within that public school district. So what was the initial BCTF response Gee, choice within the public system must be bad.

And then there are the usual anti-free market rants. Anti-capitalist activists Maude Barlow and Murray Dobin are regulars both at BCTF conferences and in union literature. Naturally, the union opposes FTA, NAFTA, and even the provincial balanced budget act passed by the NDP. One BCTF-sponsored speaker from a leftist think tank argued for re-regulating the financial markets, as if control-and-command states have some sort of glorious track record.

On occasion, the BCTF teams up with anti-globalization activists, such as in 1999 when the British Columbia Teachers' Federation put out a news release arguing that "education is not a commodity," as 100 union activists traveled to Seattle to join in anti-WTO demonstrations. Get the joke The union insists that "education is not a commodity," except now where salaries are concerned in which case it wants "market adjustments." Right.

More irony: While the BCTF opposes violent video games (like who doesn't), its members traveled not only to the "battle in Seattle," but its president enjoyed himself in Quebec City earlier this year. Those were rather violent events, but of course, the fault lay with the police who kept Molotov cocktail-types away from elected heads of state. "I witnessed their [the demonstrators'] outrageous treatment by the police and the military," wrote David Chudnovksy of his Quebec City experience.

If the BCTF is interested in presenting more than one view of capitalism to its membership, I'll gladly volunteer free columns for their newsmagazine. And I'd suggest that they headline the Fraser Institute's Michael Walker at their conventions to present a slide show on how free markets lift everyone's standard of living. Of course, the BCTF, funded by its members, can take any position it wants. It is more than free to slag the free markets in which most people work and from which originate the tax dollars for teacher salaries. But teachers and taxpayers might not appreciate the union strategy of regularly bashing the free market only to hug it during salary negotiations.