San Pedro Azcapotzaltongo (Hoy Nicolás Romero), (México), 1900 – 1997

By Marcel Gomes

A historical leader of the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), Velásquez was, for decades, the main labor arm of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which governed the country for seven decades in the 20th century. Born in the countryside, he migrated to the capital at a young age, where he worked as a milk delivery man. In 1923, he founded the Union of Workers in the Dairy Industry. He claimed to defend a unionism whose principles stemmed from the Mexican Revolution of 1910, but he soon faced attacks from various sectors of the Mexican left.

Shortly after the founding of the CTM in 1936, the Communist Party refused to endorse his nomination for the central’s second position, that of secretary of organization, but later reversed its decision. He played a crucial role in the process of the PRI’s appropriation of labor movements and the Mexican state itself. In exchange for funding for his central organization, he guaranteed jobs for unionists and support for government projects. In the 1980s, he was the first to advocate, within the PRI, for the expulsion of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, the leader of the party’s left wing. He supported the governments that implemented a neoliberal agenda in the country, from Miguel de la Madrid to Carlos Salinas de Gortari and Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León. In the 1990s, he endorsed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and opposed Zapatismo.