Trade Unions and

Data was also collected on the workers’ interest Members of Katunayake EPZ in trade unions, their awareness about branch of United Federation of Labour trade unions, their views on the role of and Women's Centre conducted trade unions and their expectations of the field work under the training the trade unions, methods of joining and supervision of LST’s Senior trade unions and their engagement wi. [...] process, the field work team was The Katunayake EPZ was selected interviewed by LST's Senior Researcher as the site of the research as this was the on their observations and feedback first to be established and it is the most was obtained on the experiences of developed7 and the largest8 EPZ in Sri their engagement with workers in the Lanka. [...] Lack of awareness of trade unions exists in a The people who were from the context where the new workers are still villages surrounding the EPZ showed struggling to get used to the EPZ setting the least interest in trade unions and an which is an unfamiliar environment to overwhelming majority of them were them. [...] The critique from the part of the trade unions is that the representatives of the employees elected for the Employee Councils are those who are loyal to the factory management. [...] 29 Trade Unions and Export Processing Zone Workers : Swimming in Turbulent Waters When the government established a Ministerial tripartite task force to look into the issues of employment, the trade unions were accepted as a party representing the workers (in fact as the sole representatives of the workers).19 However, the organizations that have been working on the welfare matters of the workers.