The National Union of Workers (NUW) is an active trade union in the tea plantations in Sri Lanka. The NUW was established in 1965 by V. K. Vellayan, his colleague with the most effective labour force in the tea plantation in Sri Lanka. In the Sri Lankan provincial council election of 1999, the Ceylon Workers' Congress (CWC), a political party in Sri Lanka that has traditionally represented Tamils working in the plantation sector of the economy, run under the banner of the NUW due to a dispute over the party.