Fighting for Farmworkers

Since the end of slavery in America, no workers have been more exploited than the men and women who bend to the earth in backbreaking labor, picking fruits, vegetables, and tobacco, and getting very little back in terms of wages or respect for their humanity. But their cause has a champion in Baldemar Velásquez. Velásquez was among hundreds of thousands of children who joined their migrant parents working long hours in the fields. Inspired by that early experience, he founded the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) in 1967. Velásquez joins Bill to talk about the ongoing David vs. Goliath struggles to ensure fairness for American farmworkers. Also on the program, author and gun industry analyst Tom Diaz explains how a lethal combination of self-defense laws and concealed carry laws — championed by the NRA and the gun industry — makes us more vulnerable to gun violence. He warns that the genie is out of the bottle and we should be gravely concerned about the unrelenting marketing of guns. Diaz’s latest book is The Last Gun: How Changes in the Gun Industry Are Killing Americans and What It Will Take to Stop It.