July 10, 2006
The Little Tramp's Classic Labor Lesson
Venezuela's socialist government is using a 1936 Chaplin film to educate workers about their rights. Employers are not applauding.
In a formal complaint to Chavez last month, the four main employer associations in Venezuela said that showing a movie depicting the boss as a "vulgar exploiter of workers" was designed to "generate hate and resentment in the labor sector" and "demonize the employer."
An official at the Venezuelan Confederation of Industries, one of the four signatories, said that the new workplace laws were another example of Chavez punishing private industry, a process the groups say has been unrelenting since a failed 2002 coup led by businessman Pedro Carmona.
Critics say Chavez is merely recycling the failed protectionist economic policies that many South American nations tried to impose after World War II to keep out foreign capital and competition. The policies were largely jettisoned in the 1980s as countries began embracing free markets and foreign investment.
~Cuba with oil?
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