Celebration for employees from Maintenance, Transport, Mechanics and Power Engineering
The third of this year's gala evenings for long-serving employees of the Kosice steelworks, which took place on November 18 at the now traditional venue of the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in Kosice, was for celebrators from the Power Engineering, Maintenance, Mechanics and Transport Divisions, together with their spouses. This evening marking thirty, thirty-five and forty years of work for the steelmaking company was naturally also attended by U. S. Steel Kosice President David J. Rintoul, OZ KOVO U. S. Steel Kosice Trade Union Council Chairman Mikulas Hintos, Vice Presidents, General Managers, Directors and trade union representatives from those divisions. As many as 39 celebrators have worked at the steelworks for 40 years, the majority of them, 16 in number, in the Transport Division.
Cost-saving projects are producing distinct benefits this year
The sixteen teams which have joined in this year's cost-saving program (CCIP) have come up with 210 projects in the ten months so far which focus on cutting costs in six basic categories. The greatest savings, with a 51 per cent share of the overall amount, have been produced by projects aiming to economize on materials, followed by energy-saving projects with a 26 per cent share, and expenditure-saving projects with a 15 per cent share. The leaders in the amount of savings are the teams from Primary operations, specifically the Blast Furnaces and Steel Shops teams, followed by the Procurement team.
Wishing Trees fulfill children's dreams
The Wishing Trees project now has a six-year tradition at the Kosice steelworks. On Monday of this week new trees were placed around the works, hung with 131 cards bearing wishes from children in the foster homes in Podolinec village and on Uralska Street in Kosice, and children from selected socially-disadvantaged families, by the wives of American and Slovak managers of U. S. Steel Kosice Mary Rintoul, Slavka Jackova, Susan Coyne, Sandy Napoli, Becky Beltz, Marla Shuttlesworth, Janice Tabler, Brandy Foulkrod and Melissa Matrazzo.
Aiming to reduce risks to a minimum
The Blast Furnaces Division ranks among the most active in U. S. Steel Kosice in terms of discovering, assessing and eliminating safety risks. Since April of this year, when the project known as Risk Management was started up at the steelworks, BFD staff have identified the best part of 3850 risks in their operations, they have taken on more than 450 tasks, and they have already completed 260 of them. "Most of these are not at all costly projects, but measures we are able to implement using plant maintenance resources," says Blast Furnace Division Director Marek Jenco. "What is important is that employees keep an eye on their work environment and suggest how to eliminate potential dangers and threats, or at least reduce them to acceptable levels."
