Demetrio Vallejo (Nov 7 1910 – December 24, 1985) was a railroad worker and union activist from Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, Mexico.
Vallejo began working as a railroad employee in 1928, later joining the Partido Comunista Mexicano (PCM) in 1934.
[1][2] On June 26, 1958, the Union of Railroad Workers of the Mexican Republic (Spanish: Sindicato de Trabajadores Ferrocarrileros de la Republica Mexicana) (STFRM) Local 13 of Matias Romero, Oaxaca, began a series of escalating strikes, beginning at 2 hours in length, then expanding up to 8 hours, before finally calling a general strike.
The government responded to the strikes, on August 3, 1958, police were sent in to seize the Railroad Workers' union halls and arrest dissident members.
The plan consisted of raising rates and terminating subsidies given to United States mining and metal companies.
[2][4] The government alleged Vallejo was a communist, of which he claims to have left the party in 1946, and that he had plotted the strikes with members of the Soviet embassy in Mexico City, the military attaché and the second secretary, who were later removed from the country.
In July 1970 Vallejo was released from prison due to the law of social dissolution being repealed by then president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz.
Upon release from prison, Vallejo did not rejoin the National Railroad Council, instead he organized his own group, the Railwaymen's Union Movement (MSF)[1] and in 1974, Vallejo co-founded the Mexican Workers' Party (Spanish: Partido Mexicano de los Trabajadores) (PMT).