Daily Labor News National
Labor-Specialized Daily Newspaper



Jin, Sook-Kyung
(Korea Labor Policy and Information Center)




1. Foundation of Daily Labor News
'Daily Labor News(DLN)' first started from transmitting the news through computer communication and was published in need of a medium which shared economic state and labor movement systematically.
After 'The Great Fight of Labors' in 1987 and going through strike in 1988, 1989, a labor union movement has shown a rapid growth and given a birth to public leaders and experts in labor movement. Especially as in 1990 'National Council of Trade Unions' was made, labor parties were demanded to change their way newly.
At the time when there was no freedom in making a labor union, labor parties helped them build a labor union or backed them in various aspects for example, law inquiry and education etc and gained quite a success.
However, because of the growth of a labor union itself, this kind of role was replaced by everyday work of labor union and actionist began to look for a new area necessary for developing labor movement.
At that time, 'Labor Education Association(the current Korea Labor and Society Institute)' or 'Young-Nam Labor Institute', 'Korea Labor Policy Research Institute', etc. has been developed focusing on education and policy investigation and 'Korea Rearch Institute for Worker's Human Rights and Justice' chose ultra modern information circulation business and some parties decided to do cultural movement work.
The people who made DLN are included in the group which mainly discussed about information circulation.
Under this stand point, it had three rules. 1) Deliver everyday news of labor objectively 2) Have a national deliverance net 3) Be expertise in labor problem.
At first, DLN was informational newspaper based on newspaper scraps but it came out into the world as 'Daily Labor News', an 'everyday' specialized newspaper covering where the relations between labor and management were heading and other important issues.
From the start, it was distributed even to other regions though 16 branches.
In addition, DLN started from peoples interest on uniting information communication with labor movement so building database was under the process at the same time.

2. The history of the Daily Labor News
1992. 7. 18. (making) the 'Daily Labor News editorial department' as the publication office the 'Daily Labor News' began to be transmitted.
1993. 5. 18 'Korean Labor Policy Information Center' was established(Daily Labor News business, Database business, policy business) Published DLN as the first press work.
1993. 7. 21 English version 'Korea Labor News'
lst edition was published(after to 4th edition)
1994. 12. 19. First open employment
1996. 4. 30. Issue 1000th anniversary
(International discussion room in Press Center)

(1) The first period(1992. 7ˇ­1993. 5) : DLN transmitted by computer communication
DLN was started by 'one computer and one telephone line' and two people.
DLN being published by progress party promote conference moving to DLN Editorial Department with a vision of building Korean Labor policy information center made unique driving subjectivity.
At first, DLN was transmitted only through computer communications, and was delivered free of charge to these who wanted it.

(2) The second period(1995. 5ˇ­1994. 12) : DLN by the newspaper scraps
In year 93, deciding to start a serious business with DLN.
With a great deal of more people, with the aim of a nationwide net DLN went on under the preparation. From then on DLN was delivered from nation-wide 16 branches to the members who paid regular fees by own network and mail, like now.
At that time, DLN was edited with movement about labor and capital problem and economic situations scrapped from newspapers, economic magazine and weekly papers devided under the same theme. also introduced information from the labor faction and statement, informations on conferences.
However, although it did a good job in arranging the information the role as writing its own story and forming public opinion was put aside to be solved afterwards.
To supplement, 'Special monday edition' was published once a week which explained the hot argument point and introduced related stories.

(3) The third period(1994. 12ˇ­now)
Making its place as specialized media on the relations between labor and capital. In 1994, december DLN welcomes new employees by open exam for service in the company for DLN, the open employment had more meaning than others because it wes an investment for people to improve the paper's quality from just manufacturing first information like newspaper scraps. As a turning point, for emphasizing subject selection and finding article, DLN widened its limit for going in and to democratic trade unions to the Federation of Korean Trade Unions(FKTU), business circle, and Ministry of Labor.
In 1995, 1000th issue anniversary to celebrate, not only labor, business, and government representatives but those of KCTU which was thought to be illegal were presented, It was the first time that these two were together in one place officially therefore it raised rank of DLN for labor-in and out. Especially the time when making KCTU and the argument of its legality and the fight for the change of labor law etc was main interest nationwide, DLN, which delivered accurate stories on the attitude between the labor and capital and the point in dispute, was accepted union leaders as 'essential media'.
In particular, the quickness of DLN shown when it turns the labor information which came in 5ˇ­6 o'clock in the afternoon to articles till the dawn of next day is main point which is outstanding. Now DLN devides the articles of reporters to 'New focus' & 'General news' and schedule of union and movement of union leaders and also scraps partly. The difficulty of this challenge is keeping nation-wide deliverance net. Deliverance network of own has been reduced a lot and at present it is delivered through the network of newspapers from about 160 branches.

3. The background of DLN
One union leader who read the first issue of DLN in union information room said, "I thought it was surely going to fail after one year." This kind of worry is natural because DLN was unimaginable newspaper at 1993 and considering the pressure to have nationwide transmission net.
DLN to live was uncertain in the world where general newspapers covered the relations between labor and capital. Only at the time of collective bargaining and where specialized labor paper were mainly weekly and monthly, However, on the other side, the union was thirsty of speedy and objective information and as the result, the response of readers was the foundation of growth. With fast flows of information DLN decreased subjectivity and exaggeration of process act and also the speedy report of the of the center helped to bind regions and center. As the result, union news which was to know the result and refer to afterward changed to information for people to give out opinions in policy making and be a part. Besides it also contributed to productive discussion as it removed unnecessary supposition and misunderstanding as the result of the accurate report of stand point between the unions. And it surely lowered the price paid for collection of information under the situation where there was low understanding of each other between labor and capital.
Also unlike other media which only spoke for either labor side or management side and formed such readers, DLN was said to new market as 'specialized media that labor and management both trust.'

4. Task of DLN
It's hard to compare with other general papers, but DLN which published 1400 issues in 6 years is planning to concentrate on overcome its limit rather than satisfying at the achievement. In fact, DLN is expected to be 'alternative media' which reflect public opinion and lead it instead if just delivering the information. The task is to suggest a persuasive alternative plan to lead the relations between labor and management toward rational direction as the labor media and to produce more serious and specialized article.
For this, DLN is going to widen its interest to improvement of system and subjects concerning the relations between labor and management such as the industrial safety, general economics and international relations while concentration on the labor movement.