Safety & Health

U. S. Steel coined the mantra “Safety First” well over a century ago, and ever since we have been deeply committed to the health and safety of everyone who works in our facilities.

Today we are more determined than ever to continue transforming what has traditionally been one of the most hazardous industries in all of manufacturing into one in which all our employees are well protected. The future of steel must be one that is safe for all.

Safety and health are in our DNA. Whether it’s our leadership promoting safety as a core value, or all our employees looking out for the well-being of their co-workers, we strive to maintain a zero-harm culture. We engage all our employees in taking responsibility for their own safety, and accountability for the safety of others. And we empower them with the training and resources needed to assess, reduce and eliminate hazards and risks in the work environment. Because of our focus on building a culture of safety, and the active role our employees play in every aspect of our Safety Management System (SMS), we were able to operate all our facilities without a single fatality in 2023.

U. S. Steel receives many surveys and benchmarking requests from customers about our safety culture, protocols, visibility, tracking and management system to assess safety and industrial hygiene processes. The reality is that productive and financially successful companies are safe companies.

We launched the implementation of a formal SMS in 2019, and we’ve gained valuable insights from the safety data it provides. In 2023, we received the International Organization for Standardization’s (ISO) 45001 certification at the Mon Valley Works, Gary Works and U. S. Steel’s Big River Steel Works. External surveillance audits were also completed at Great Lakes Works and at USSK in Košice, Slovakia, as these sites received their ISO 45001 certifications in 2022. We also took the opportunity to get more employees actively involved in the planning and execution of our SMS performance evaluations. In addition to quarterly SMS health checks, every plant underwent a corporate SMS audit to determine if it met the internal continuous improvement targets related to our core safety processes.

We also continued to find ways to improve the gathering, analyzing and leveraging of our safety data. One major development was an application that allows supervisors to enter safety conversations in the field from a mobile device. Another marked advance was the development of safety data dashboards that allow plants to monitor their performance and set targets at a more granular level. An improved corrective action tool in the Safety Recordkeeping System has been completed and has provided a more sustainable method to track the status of corrective actions to closure.

Our leaders ensure that safety processes are integrated into our day-to-day operations and consistently emphasize the importance of working safely. We partner with the United Steelworkers on safety practices and programs, and our managers lead by example daily. As part of our commitment, we train employees in hazard identification and the use of control measures to eliminate or reduce risk.

Our President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), David Burritt, has served on the National Safety Council’s board of directors for the past four years, providing leadership, insights and guidance in support of the council’s mission to eliminate the leading causes of preventable work-related injuries and fatalities. In addition, our Vice President and Chief Safety & Security Officer, Robert Rudge Jr., serves as a council delegate to assist in formulating position papers and policy statements on safety. The U. S. Steel safety team continually collaborates and exchanges information and ideas with the World Steel Association relating to injury trends, incident reduction techniques and fatality prevention.