AK Steel Corporation is an American steel company whose predecessor, Armco, was founded in 1899 in Middletown, Ohio. Today, the company's corporate headquarters is situated in West Chester, Ohio, (a suburb of Cincinnati) after having moved from Middletown, Ohio, in August 2007.^[2]

The company derives its name from the first letter of Armco and Kawasaki Steel Corporation which entered into a limited partnership with Armco in 1989 with the company formally being renamed AK Steel in 1993 when it became a publicly traded company.^[3]

History[link]

The company was founded in 1899 as The American Rolling Mill Company (which is the basis for the eventual ARMCO name) in Middletown, Ohio, and operated the Middletown Works there. In 1910 it opened the Ashland Works in Ashland, Kentucky. In 1948 it adopted the ARMCO name which in turn became Armco Steel Corporation.^[3]

The Middletown and Ashland were the company's only plants until the 1950s when it began buying more mills and diversifying.^[3]

In 1978 it was renamed Armco, Inc. and it moved its headquarters for a now diversified company to New Jersey in 1985. In 1989 it entered into a limited partnership with Kawasaki Steel Corporation as well as with Itochu Corporation owning 50 percent of its Nova Steel Processing unit.^[3]

In 1993 the company moved its headquarters to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and renamed itself AK Steel Holdings reflecting its Armco roots and sizable investment by Kawasaki. The company became publically traded in 1993. In 1995 it moved its headquarters back to Middletown.^[3]

In 2007 it moved its headquarters to West Chester Township, Butler County, Ohio. In 2008 it became a component of S&P500.

AK Steel was listed #1 on the Mother Jones Top 20 polluters of 2010; dumping over 12,000 tons of toxic chemicals into Ohio waterways.^[4]

Operations[link]

Products[link]

AK Steel production facility in Mansfield, Ohio.

An Armco culvert in an irrigation canal.

AK Steel's main products are carbon, stainless and electrical steels, cold rolled and aluminium coated stainless steel for automakers.

One of Armco's best-known products may be the crash barriers installed at roadsides, in central reservations, and around many auto-racing tracks. These barriers are commonly called "Armco".

Another product is bent corrugated steel panels that can be bolted together to make culverts. These are known as "Armco culverts".

Facilities[link]

The company has production facilities in a number of American cities including:

• Ashland, Kentucky
• Butler, Pennsylvania
• Coshocton, Ohio
• Mansfield, Ohio
• Middletown, Ohio
• Rockport, Indiana
• Zanesville, Ohio

Management[link]

The current CEO at AK Steel Holding is James L Wainscott.

Environmental record[link]

The Political Economy Research Institute ranks AK Steel 14th among corporations emitting airborne pollutants in the United States. The ranking is based on the quantity (300 thousand pounds in 2009) and toxicity of the emissions. At the same time, it scored well in terms of environmental justice, affecting smaller percentages of the poor and minorities than their respective percentages of the total population.^[5] The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued an Emergency Order pursuant to the Safe Drinking Water Act to AK Steel's Butler Works located in Butler, Pennsylvania concerning the nitrate/nitrite compounds being released into the Connoquenessing Creek, an occasional water source for the Borough of Zelienople on June 27, 2000.^[6] They had violated the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act and that it had failed to properly dispose of hexavalent chromium waste in Butler.^[7] In 2004 the EPA and the Justice Department announced that AK Steel Holding settled their alleged environmental violations at their steel mill in Butler, Pennsylvania.^[8] AK Steel Holding agreed to a $1.2 million settlement, which consists of a $300,000 penalty and $900,000 in projects intended to reduce smog-producing ozone in Pennsylvania.^[8] In 2006, AK Steel reached an estimated $12,000,000 settlement to compensate for PCB contamination in Middletown, Ohio.^[9]

Middletown Works lockout[link]

Armco and the Armco Employees Independent Federation (AEIF; an employee labor union) had a collective bargaining agreement in place in 2004 that required AK Steel to employ 3,114 workers, a "minimum base force guarantee". The agreement also authorized AK Steel to suspend the minimum number. On January 13, 2004, AK Steel informed the AEIF that it was suspending the minimum. The union then filed a grievance contesting the suspension. An arbitrator upheld the decision by AK Steel on July 1, 2004, subject to certain limitations, through at least May 10, 2005. The union sought and was granted a new hearing, and on July 1, 2005 the arbitrator issued a comprise total workforce. As part of the agreement the arbitrator allowed AK Steel to set aside financial payments to a fund, in lieu of hiring to the minimum, the amount of which was set by the arbitrator on October 7, 2005. On September 29, 2005, the AEIF filed a lawsuit against AK Steel in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio (AEIF v. AK Steel Corp.; Case No. 1:05-CV-639), in which the AEIF sought to vacate that portion of the July 1, 2005 Award. AK Steel answered the complaint and filed counterclaims (AK Steel Corp. v. AEIF, Case No. 1:05-CV-531) on November 2, 2005.^[10][11]

On March 1, 2006, AK Steel began a lockout of around 2700, workers, at their Middletown Works plant, in Middletown, Ohio.^[12][13] By the next day, the mill was operated by 1,800 salaried and temporary replacement workers. In late October, AK offered a "final" contract, which was rejected by the union at a vote of 2 to 1.^[14] One year after the lockout started, on February 28, 2007, AK Steel reached a labor deal with the labor union,^[15][16] The lockout was over when the union members ratified the proposed contract on March 14, 2007.^[17][18] This lockout was the longest labor stalemate in the 105-year history of the Middletown Works.^[19] The previous longest stalemate was a six-day company lockout in 1986.^[20][21] As part of the agreement the AEIF and AK Steel reached a joint settlement of their five total counter lawsuits, with AK Steel paying $7,702,301. A third of the amount was for profit sharing, a third for an assistance fund for employee benefits of employees not recalled to work, and a third an escrow account to settle employee disputes and claims as a result of the lockout.^[11]

AK Steel replaces Countrywide in S&P 500 Index[link]

Following the close of trading on June 30, 2008, AK Steel was added to Standard & Poor's 500 Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) Steel Sub-Industry index. The S&P 500 is a widely known and utilized indicator of the U.S. equities market.^[22][23] ON December 11, 2011, it was removed from the S&P 500 and replaced with BorgWarner.

See also[link]

• Armco Ashland Works
• Donora Smog Museum
• Kansas City Bolt and Nut Company plant (former ARMCO plant)

References[link]

External links[link]

• AK Steel
• AK Steel GmbH