OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY

Safety and Health

U. S. Steel Košice, s.r.o. remains focused on its primary
core value – the safety and health of our employees
and contractors working at the facility every day. We firmly believe that zero injuries is achievable and that remains our goal.

The incorporation of the Carnegie Way into the safety process will enhance our efforts in identifying, prioritizing, and eliminating risk while engaging the entire workforce.

Ongoing implementation of 5S (Japanese for: sort, set in order, shine, standardize, sustain) housekeeping principles will assist in creating and maintaining an organized, clean, and high performance workplace across all facilities.

Occupational Safety and Health Protection

At U. S. Steel Košice, safety is primary and the most important value in protecting life and health at work. Thanks to this approach, our Company in 2020 achieved the best results for key indicators in its history. For the second year in a row, we ended the year without days away from work (DAFW) injuries. The new record for the frequency of all injuries, according to Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) methodology, was 0.062. Our Company achieved the lowest number of OSHA Recordable injuries and that is 4, which broke the record from 2019, when we recorded 8 injuries. We managed to achieve another milestone in the number of days worked without OSHA Recordable injuries. We worked for 169 days without any OSHA Recordable injuries in 2020, longer than the 124 days recorded the year before.

The overall results which our Company achieved for the occupational injury rates are among the best in our 20-year history. As shown in the graph, comparing 2020 with 2001, the Company recorded a 98 percent decrease in the injury rate (Recordable + DAFW) by the end of 2020.

In 2020, the Transportation Division employees set a record in terms of working hours without a single injury and became the first in the Group to work 6 million hours without an injury. The Company Management and Subsidiaries employees worked 3 million hours without an injury. Employees at the Hot Rolling Mill, Steel Shops, Maintenance, Coated Products and Tin Mill and the Coke Plant worked more than 1.5 million hours without injury. The employees of several divisional plants managed to work the entire year without OSHA Recordables. Coke Plant and Hot Rolling Mill employees worked for more than two years without an occupational injury, while Transportation employees reached more than five years.

The Company performed two internal Fatality Prevention Audits (FPA) in cooperation with division representatives, trade unions, SBS Security and the Plant Fire Department in 2020. These audits also focused on external companies working on USSK premises. We assessed and eliminated hazards in the areas of work near Mobile Equipment, Energy Control, Confined Space Entry and around the worksites. The teams of experts from various fields performed 102 audits on Life-Threatening Prevention Programs. The team members assigned 29 measures in total. The audits did not identify any critical findings related to Life-Threatening Prevention Programs.

Our activities continued to make the Occupational Safety and Health Protection processes more efficient. In cooperation with experts from various areas and quality management system managers, we focused on implementation of our Safety Management System (SMS).

NEWS FROM SAFETY

We have completed the Safety and Enviro audit

Last week, at U. S. Steel Košice, TÜV SÜD Slovakia employees carried out an integrated audit for OSH (SMS) and environmental management (SME) systems.