Ceylon Workers' Congress - History

History

The CWC was formed by Savumiamoorthy Thondaman as an Indian Estates Workers Trade Union in 1950. It was an outgrowth of the Ceylon Indian Congress (CIC), formed in 1939. In 1950 the CIC changed its name to the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) and became the largest trade union in the country. Another trade union, the Democratic Workers Congress (DWC), was formed in 1956 as a breakaway faction of the CWC as a result of leadership rivalries between the president, S.Thondaman, and the general secretary A. Aziz. The former retained control of the CWC to date. Thondaman has been the dominant trade union leader of the Indian Tamil workers for nearly four decades. As president of the Ceylon Indian Congress, he contested the Nuwara Eliya seat at the 1947 general election and won. His party put forward seven candidates in the plantation electorates and six of them were returned.

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