The report, A National Survey of journalists’ working conditions across Sri Lanka”, was launched on 15 May 2025 at Rainbow Resources Lanka. The theme was ” Press under Pressure: a study of journalists’ working conditions in Sri Lanka,” No. 30, Amarasekara Mawatha, Colombo 05. This national survey was conducted by the Federation of Media Employees’ Trade Unions in Sri Lanka, with support from the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).

The survey sought to expose insights into journalists’ working conditions, challenges, and aspirations across journalists in Sri Lanka.

The Federation of Media Employees Trade Union under the guidance of the International Federation of Journalists, organized the leadership training and completed the two-day workshops at the Thevni Holiday Resorts on 13& 14th October 2024 outside of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

The participants representing all provinces and mainstream media of the Island with 07 women journalists and 15 journalists participated in this Leadership Development Training workshop.

It covered the areas of what a union is, what the role of a union is, how to develop the union, the role of leadership, online organizing the union, etc.

 

The IFJ trained the trainers with TOT under this program. Ms.Gouri Bathan, Ms. Shareefa Tahir,  Ms.Indira Nawagamuwa, Mr Rizwan Segue Mohideen, and Mr. Tharidu Uduwaragedara shared their experience and expertise knowledge to train the participants in this workshop.

Agenda as follow

Day 01 –

Introduction with Explaining Agenda (Indira)

Icebreaker (Sherry- Indira)

What is Leadership – 40 minutes – Tharindu

Leading unions and Members – 30 minutes – Sherry

Union Purpose and Leader Responsibilities – 40 minutes – Sherry

Prioritizing issues and Goals – Tharindu

Developing Strong Leaders and Activists – Tharindu And Sherry

Day 2 –

Communications – 40

Organizing online – 90 minutes – Rizvan

Collective Power and Action – 40 minutes – Gowri

Building and Sharing Responsibilities – 60 minutes – Gowri

Leadership Presentations – 90 minutes (With Rizvan and Gowri)

 

In addition, they discussed that they have to implement in the future the National Media Policy framework they did earlier. The purpose of the survey was to consult representatives from the media and journalists’ community island-wide on recommendations for national media policy development

 

 

The Federation of Media Employees Trade Unions FMETU Sri Lanka conducted a full day workshop to design their action plan for the next two years 2024 and 2025.

The program was part of the International Federation of Journalists, IFJ-UTU project for 2023. Rainbow Institute Sri Lanka was delighted to collaborate in this important initiative to empower journalists’ island wide. The facilitators were Dileepa Samarasinghe and Mahishka Fernando.

16 participants have participated and they discussed the below tropics to find solutions their own way.

 

Key action areas – to be divided into plans for 2024 and 2025

	Topics	Sub-areas	Expectations
1.	Addressing issues, challenges and preparing structures	·       welfare schemes, salary schemes and professional rights	·       How to implement schemes ·       How can they pay the Rs1200 per year? Annual membership fee
2.	Categories journalists and media workers (including women journalist, state media sector, provincial and young journalists) and design intervention to mobilize	·       collective bargaining agreements for state media journalists (ide ·       strengthen the FMETU affiliates  unions	·       Identify how to mobilize journalists from each area ·       How to  strengthen the FMETU affiliates  unions
3.	Update/ improve the FMETU website and start an online news bulletin
4.	Training (journalists to fit into the digital economy)
5.	Annual budget for the union	Strategies to pay annual   membership fee	How can they pay the Rs1200 per year?

Media development is a priority area of focus for FMETU Sri Lanka. Since our inception 21 years ago in 2002, the International Federation of Journalists and Asia Pacific office has been collaborating with the Federation of Media Employees Trade Unions in empowering journalists around Sri Lanka and protecting journalists’ rights.

Planning discussion for the FMETU Organizational Audit Workshop, its Executive Committee, and key members representing various regions of Sri Lanka met on 15 August 2023 to discuss the plan for the implementation of the program.

FMETU looks forward to welcoming Ms. Jane Worthington of IFJ Asia Pacific Director, who is expected to arrive in Sri Lanka soon to facilitate the organization’s corporate audit.

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Sri Lankan project partners finalise union evaluation reports: 

The IFJ’s Sri Lankan affiliates, the Free Media Movement (FMM), the Federation of Media Employees Trade Unions (FMETU), and the Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association (SLWJA) are all finalising their Union Capacity Audit reports. The institutional union strength assessments comprise one of several initial stages in the IFJ’s three-year intensive support program, which will aim to develop membership-driven national action plans. This work is supported by Union To Union (UTU).

https://www.ifj.org/media-centre/newsletters/detail/ifj-south-asia-media-bulletin-august-2023?fbclid=IwAR3Nrsx8aDuYtTkTTRlF1JIH9LWxkHRCNYpPynR8AMdBx9IsGA0eKl8RctA

(IFJ Bulatine Link)