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family members, golf handicaps and clothing preferences. Hard sales tactics and small gifts are part of the pitch. In addition, pharmaceutical companies provide perks and outright compensa- tion to doctors for their participation in the prescribing of particu- lar drugs to their mental health patients. On another front, pharmaceutical companies are reaping big profits by promoting forced drug use through programs at the National Alliance for the Mentally II] (NAMI). Mother Jones researchers used internal documents to prove that NAMI received $11.72 million from the psychiatric drug industry in just two-and- a-half years. NAMI's leading donor is Eli Lilly and Company, the maker of Prozac. Reference ¢ Ken Silverstein, "Prozac.org", Mother Jones, MOJO Wire Magazine, November/December 1999, www.motherjones.com/ mother_jones/ND99Mnami.html is a devastating effect on the workers themselves. AFL-CIO Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson accuses the industry of using the H1-B visa program to keep their workers in a position of dependence. She points out that these workers are often hired under individual contracts, which by US law means they don't have the right to organise. The H1-B program gives employers the power not only to hire and fire workers but to grant legal immigration status as well. If an employer does not like something a worker does, the employer has the power to deport the worker. Labour advocates say the problem is not a labour shortage but the industry's unwillingness to pay the salaries that American high-tech workers demand. Reference * David Bacon (dbacon@igc.apc.org), "Silicon Valley Sweatshops", Washington Free Press, July-August 2000 wy ctr nn creer eee eee 11. UN Corporate Partnerships: A Human Rights Peril 9. EPA Plans to Disburse Toxic/Radioactive Wastes into L a move to make the United Nations more corporate-friendly, Denver's Sewage System officials are calling for UN-corporate partnerships. The UN's lhe Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to pump new partners include multinational giants like McDonald's, toxic waste water into Denver's sewer system in order to clean Disney, Dow and Unocal. A business-friendly ideology at the UN up a Superfund site at the Lowry is based on a desire to gain favour landfill. with the United States, the UN's Between 1950 and 1980 at the largest funder, and to raise money Lowry landfill near Denver, mil- through private sources. lions of gallons of hazardous indus- UN agencies have entered into an trial wastes were dumped into shal- array of partnerships with giant cor- low unlined pits. The EPA declared Cuba has developed one of porations, including many which the 480-acre site a Superfund site in the most efficient organic citizens movements have 1984. Now the EPA wants to treat denounced for violations of human the contaminated groundwater at the agriculture systems in and labour rights. landfill and discharge it into the Human rights groups around the Denver metro sewage system. The the world. world are increasingly challenging sewage system would then use the the new partnership arrangements sludge from the treated water to fer- for fear that these new relationships tilise Colorado farmlands. will undermine the UN's ability to Citizen groups say that the land- serve as a counterbalance to global fill is widely contaminated with corporate power. highly radioactive plutonium and Reference other deadly wastes. Adrienne Anderson, a lawyer and instructor * Danielle Knight, "Perilous Partnerships", Multinational Monitor, at the University of Boulder, stated that the EPA's plan isa way to = March 2000, www.essential.org/monitor/mm2000/00march/econom - "legally pump plutonium into the sewer line". Anderson and her ics].html students have accrued some 200,000 files on the Lowry landfill. One document—"Preliminary Evaluation of Potential 12. Cuba Leads the World in Organic Farming Department of Energy Radioactive Wastes", dated December 13, ce has developed one of the most efficient organic agricul- 1991—-showed that the levels of plutonium and radioactive ameri- ture systems in the world. Due to the US embargo and the cium detected at the Lowry landfill were 10 to 10,000 times collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba was unable to import chemi- greater than the average levels reported for a nuclear weapons cals or modern farming machines to uphold a high-tech corporate plant in that area. The document had been released by the Lowry farming culture. The lost buying power for agricultural imports Coalition, a group of corporations and government agencies that led to a general diversification within farming on the island. dumped materials at the site. Cuba's new revolution is founded upon the development of an References organic agricultural system. The migration of small farms and © Will Fantle, "Plutonium Pancakes", The Progressive, May 2000, gardens into densely populated urban areas has also played a cru- www.progressive.org cial role in feeding citizens. Havana, with nearly 20 per cent of On lo hac mara than @ NNN ad Cuba has developed one of the most efficient organic agriculture systems in the world. 12. Cuba Leads the World in Organic Farming ce has developed one of the most efficient organic agricul- ture systems in the world. Due to the US embargo and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba was unable to import chemi- cals or modern farming machines to uphold a high-tech corporate farming culture. The lost buying power for agricultural imports led to a general diversification within farming on the island. Cuba's new revolution is founded upon the development of an organic agricultural system. The migration of small farms and gardens into densely populated urban areas has also played a cru- cial role in feeding citizens. Havana, with nearly 20 per cent of Cuba's population, now has more than 8,000 officially recognised gardens, which are in turn cultivated by more than 30,000 people and cover nearly 30 per cent of the available land. The quality and quantity of crop yields have increased—at a lower cost and with fewer health and environmental side effects than ever. References «Alison Auld, "Farming with Fidel", Sustainable Times, Fall 1999 ¢ Hugh Warwick, "Cuba's Organic Revolution", Third World Resurgence, issues 118-119, Spring 2000 10. Silicon Valley Uses Immigrant Engineers to Keep Salaries Low He skilled immigrant workers in Silicon Valley are being exploited by employers. Existing immigration law sets a cap on the number of H1-B visas the industry can use to hire immi- grant engineers, so this year the Silicon Valley electronics giants have been pushing for more H1-B workers. While H1-B-status labourers boost corporate bottom lines, there 16 = NEXUS JUNE — JULY 2001 www.nexusmagazine.com