Cost-saving Program successful
The objectives of the Cost-saving Program for the first half of this year were successfully achieved, and compared with the same period last year the cost-saving teams once again recorded improvement. The greatest contributions to savings were made by the four primary divisions - Cokery, Blast Furnaces, Steel Plant and Transport - but the initiatives from other Company sectors were also extremely valuable. They all demonstrate the employees' enormous thinking potential, in particular the steelmakers' ability to improve processes, and in this way they contribute to the success and competitiveness of the Company.
Certificate for Tube City
The company Tube City Kosice, s.r.o. has gained a certificate confirming that the firm has implemented and applies in its activities a quality management system in line with STN EN ISO 9001:2001. This document was awarded to the company by the TUV Slovakia certification body, a member of the TUV SUD group. As Tube City Kosice Quality Commissioner and Operations Manager Martin Fedorov commented, gaining this certificate commits the firm to making even more improvements in the performance of all its activities connected with ensuring the supply of scrap metal to its customer.
Regional presidents' appeal
Rudolf Bauer, President of the Kosice Self-governing Region, and Peter Chudik, President of the Presov Self-governing Region, have called on the Slovak Government to
support their aim of changing the system of European Union funding usage in Slovakia. The Kosice and Presov Regions are among the least developed areas of the Slovak Republic, and rank among the
ten most underdeveloped regions in the EU as a whole.
In their appeal which they signed and published last week, they propose changing the current approach based on centralized decision-making, which has not proved to
be an effective means of reducing the great inter-regional disparities. They are offering the central authorities a helping hand in the distribution of European financial resources. They want to
play a distinctive part during the new planning period for the years 2007 to 2013 in the process of selecting projects and making the distribution of funding more effective in terms of what is
allocated to Slovakia-East, as well as participating in the management and monitoring of individual projects.
Photo competition has its winners
The fourth edition of the annual photographic competition for U. S. Steel Kosice employees has produced its winners. The expert jury has judged the best part of two hundred photos in the categories People, Slovakia and Sport, and has selected the three best pictures. In the Sport category they decided to award just one mention of honor. The winning photos and a selection of the most interesting runners-up will be exhibited in the U. S. Steel Kosice Gallery, with the official opening taking place at 4 pm on July 28th 2005.
Steelmakers' Summer Olympiad is fifteen years old
The very first edition of these sporting games in 1991 revealed a greater interest in sporting among the Kosice steelmakers than the range of events on offer at that time. The initial four disciplines - army training competitions, air-rifle shooting, volleyball and five-a-side soccer - were progressively supplemented with other sports. Men's and women's table-tennis was introduced in 1992, and a year later skittles joined the Olympic sports. This competition attracts a great number of entries every time, with more than two hundred last year. Football-tennis players have been taking part since 1993. The beginning of September this year sees the holding of the grand fifteenth edition of the annual Summer Olympiad for employees of U. S. Steel Kosice.
