CMU

THE CEYLON MERCANTILE, INDUSTRIAL AND GENERAL WORKERS' UNION (CMU)

In November 1947, the CMU Broke away from the control of its founder President, A.E. Goonesingha, who had been elected to Ceylon's first Parliament and had been appointed as a Minister in the Cabinet of D.S. Senanayake, the first Prime Minister of Ceylon, September 1947.

The CMU thereafter adopted a new Constitution on a British trade union model, in December 1947, and its first General Secretary (Bala Tampoe) was appointed under that constitution in February 1948. Ceylon itself was granted "Independent within the British Commonwealth of Nations" by the British Parliament, in that same month. The Union has developed since then into an independent mass organization of workers in Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka), with about twenty thousand members at present, in 125 commercial, engineering and industrial establishments.

From 1948 to 1964, the CMU developed as a Union of non-manual workers. It expanded thereafter to become a general union of manual and non-manual workers, including dock workers and seafarers, but not workers in the plantations. A large proportion of its members is employed in companies belonging to the Employers' Federation of Ceylon. Most of them are covered by Collective Agreements. They include both manual and non-manual workers in several transnational companies.

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