NEW REPORT

While the people of Puerto Rico endure the consequences of the climate emergency, pharma manufacturers continue polluting and exploiting the natural resources in the archipelago, making billions of dollars in the process.

You are one signature away from demanding Puerto Rican lawmakers to launch an official investigation on the labor conditions of workers in pharma plants all over Puerto Rico!

Puerto Rico deserves real investments in infrastructure and a future for its people. It’s time to hold La Junta and its pharma buddies accountable. Sign the petition below!

Securing a job in pharma has always been considered a source of stability and decent wages in Puerto Rico. With nearly fifty manufacturing plants all over the Island, corporations like Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, and AstraZeneca employ tens of thousands in Puerto Rico. Yet, upon examining the real-life experiences of their workers, Big Pharma’s record-breaking profits and luxuries have yet to benefit the workers actually producing life-saving medications.

“Pharma’s Failed Promise: How Big Pharma Hurts Workers, Dodges Taxes, and Extracts Billions in Puerto Rico,” in collaboration with Hedge Clippers, our latest report reveals how pharma has extracted wealth from Puerto Rico, keeping thousands of workers in low-wage jobs while exposing them to below standard health and safety issues–all while benefiting from billions of dollars in tax breaks.
 Billion dollar corporate tax breaks to manufacturers are projected to be $14.5B in 2022 alone–larger than Puerto Rican government’s total operational budget.
Tens of thousands of Puerto Rican workers make more than half of the world’s top-selling prescription drugs, helping patients with arthritis, stroke, and cancer.
In FY2020, estimates found that tax breaks only generated around 7,000 direct and indirect jobs, or 0.6% of the total labor force, while Puerto Ricans living in the archipelago paid more than $250,000 in tax subsidies per job.
Puerto Rican workers are paid half (in some cases only a third) of what workers in the exact same role are paid in the US.
In the last decade Puerto Rico-based pharma plants received <80 complaints, accident reports, or referrals for health and safety issues–the highest number of instances in any US state or territory in the last decade.

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