September 17, 2001—At the second annual presentation of the National Safety Council’s (NSC) Green Cross for Safety Medal in New York, Richard M. Wardrop, the chairman and chief executive officer of Ohio-based AK Steel said that while there are plenty of financial justifications for improving workplace safety, the only important number is zero.
Wardrop said in part: “True, good safety lowers workers’ comp bills. True, good safety lowers insurance premiums. True, good safety improves morale. True, good safety improves productivity. And true, we could calculate with some precision the net effect of all these things on our bottom line. But the fact is, we don’t. Because all of those are secondary to why we work so hard at safety. If we want to talk numbers, then let’s talk about important numbers. In 1994, AK Steel had a total recordable frequency of 6.96. That was almost two times better than the steel industry average. And while that was good, it wasn’t good enough for AK Steel. Today, our number is 1.20, or nearly six times better than in 1994. And we’re now about five times better than the industry average. But that is still not good enough … not for us. The only true measure is how much better we are today than yesterday.”
Last September, Wardrop was the first-ever recipient of the NSC medal, which honors exemplary commitments to workplace safety and corporate citizenship. He, along with NSC Chairman Patrick R. Tyson, presented the council’s 2001 Green Cross for Safety Medal to Dr. Craig R. Barrett, president and chief executive officer of Intel.
For more information, contact The National Safety Council.
