Improving safety, and specifically preventing fatalities, is a key focus for everyone at ArcelorMittal. In fact, safety is, and always will be, our highest priority, and thus a condition of employment at ArcelorMittal.  

Ensuring the safety of our employees is fundamental.  But we also want our people to thrive and achieve their potential. Having a healthy, engaged and supported workforce, who feel valued, respected, welcomed and heard, and who have an opportunity to continue to develop their skills for tomorrow, is also integral to our approach.  Indeed, to create a high-performing organisation, it is vital. 

"To protect the physical safety of our employees, we must identify and remove unsafe conditions, have comprehensive processes and health and safety (H&S) standards in place that everyone follows…every shift, every job, every task. To maximize everyone's mental and physical wellbeing, we must provide support for mind and body through medical screenings, fitness opportunities, injury rehabilitation and mental health resources. For our collective and individual success, we must also build a workplace where everyone feels welcomed, valued, respected and heard. One where we can be ourselves – this is Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (ED&I)." Ron Bedard, President and CEO, ArcelorMittal Dofasco

Our challenge

We are on a ‘Journey to Zero’, with the aim of achieving zero fatalities and lost time injuries (LTIs).

Safety, health and wellbeing of everyone on our site is our number one priority. Our lost-time injury frequency rate (LTIFR), defined as the number of injuries per million hours worked that result in employees or contractors taking time off work, was 1.06 in 2021, 0.37 in 2022, and 0.3 in 2023. To protect our people's physical safety, we work to identify and remove unsafe conditions and keep and follow comprehensive processes and health and safety (H&S) standards. We also refocused on training for all employees in 2023. The combination of these commitments and actions is the way to zero.

Our approach

The safety of our employees takes priority over everything.

ArcelorMittal has a global health and safety policy and 10 Lifesaving Golden Rules that outline how we work and use equipment, how we identify and manage risk, how we take responsibility for our own and others’ safety, and how we learn from accidents and near misses. ArcelorMittal also has a local health and safety policy, signed by our President and CEO, which reinforces our site's commitment to safety. 

To ensure the quality of our management systems, our site is certified to the international health and safety standard, ISO 45001.

In addition to recording LTIs, we also track near-misses. Our ability to monitor and analyse potential severe injuries and fatalities (PSIFs) is key as it provides a deeper understanding of how near-miss incidents arise and can be avoided. Results show that sites with no fatalities proactively detect and manage twice as many PSIFs as sites with one or more. The volume of proactive PSIFs logged at ArcelorMittal Dofasco continues to increase and 103 situations were proactively detected and addressed in 2020, 142 in 2021 and 146 in 2022.

We also work to improve the quality of our analysis and actions, including sharing best practices throughout ArcelorMittal.

Our leadership is held accountable for our safety performance through the Company’s remuneration policy. And safety is the first topic in the appraisal process for every employee, irrespective of where they work.

Our site runs regular safety, health and wellbeing programming and campaigns, which culminate in our Global Health and Safety Day. This annual event includes health and safety activities and opens with a corporate safety video and a message from the chairman and CEO. A global film is produced each year and has been an effective storytelling tool, engaging people emotionally. Our 2021 safety video, 'The commitment', inspired people around our site and around the ArcelorMittal globe to make a commitment to keeping each other safe.