March 1, 2007 — AK Steel is joining with the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to form a strategic partnership to further strengthen safety and health efforts at the company's Mansfield, Ohio, Works.

Through the OSHA Strategic Partnership Program (OSPP), AK Steel and OSHA will work cooperatively on safety and health training and education programs. The OSPP is a voluntary, cooperative relationship formed by OSHA in order to encourage, assist and recognize a company's efforts to achieve a high level of worker safety and health. Since the OSPP began in 1998, more than 400 partnerships with OSHA have been formed nationwide, impacting more than 20,000 employers and one million employees.

"Employee safety is AK Steel's number-one priority," said James L. Wainscott, AK Steel’s Chairman, President and CEO. "We look forward to enhancing our ongoing safety and health program at the Mansfield Works through this cooperative partnership with OSHA."

AK Steel has worked to develop a proactive safety program, as exemplified by the three AK Steel facilities that have earned OSHA’s prestigious safety Star award under the agency’s Voluntary Protection Program (VPP). In 2001, AK Steel's Butler Works became the first steel plant in the nation to receive the OSHA VPP Star. The company's Rockport, Ind., plant earned the VPP Star in 2002 and was re-certified in 2006, and the Columbus, Ind., facility of the company's subsidiary AK Tube LLC received its Star in 2006.

During 2006, AK Steel tied its best-ever companywide safety performance with an industry-leading total recordable injury rate of 0.36, which was about 10 times better than the steel industry average.

Headquartered in Middletown, Ohio, AK Steel produces flat-rolled carbon, stainless and electrical steel products, as well as carbon and stainless tubular steel products, for automotive, appliance, construction and manufacturing markets.