QUITO, May 1 (Reuters) - Flanked by thousands of workers, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said on Tuesday he plans to curb what he called labor exploitation by multinational firms and slash the number of contract workers employed by the state.
"We allow multinationals with lots of capital to exploit us and choose a country that offers them more advantages ... that has to end," Correa told about 30,000 workers in an International Workers' Day march through Quito's colonial downtown.
In a rare appearance of a president at a union-organized march, Correa said a regional labor code should be implemented in Latin America to halt competition among neighbors.
The widely popular leftist president also dubbed as "shameless" contract labor deals that fail to grant workers health insurance and better working conditions.
He vowed to extend the minimum wage to all workers in the poor Andean state by 2008.
Correa, an ally of firebrand Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, has rattled many on Wall Street with pledges to renegotiate Ecuador's national debt and foreign oil deals.
Some of the largest multinationals in the country are oil companies, such as Spain's Repsol YPF
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