HAZARDS IN THE HOT ROLLING MILL

Hot rolling mills take slabs of steel and transform them into plates, sheets and strips.  Plates may be ½ to 2 inches thick, while sheets and steel strip are thin (usually less than ½ inch).

Slabs of steel are heated in ovens to hot rolling temperature, somewhere above 2100°F.  The slab is rolled between heavy steel rollers that break off the scale and flatten the slab, like rolling pins flatten dough.  The rolls squeeze the steel down to the proper thickness and increase the slab’s length.

Cold rolling is also done, by running steel between pairs of hardened rolls.  This process makes the steel or strip more uniform, but tends to harden the steel, which is not desirable for sheet or strip applications.

Production processes may include operating transfer beds, operating shears, stacking and preparing plates, sheets or rolled steel for shipping, cutting out pieces for testing, and emptying the scrap holes next to the shears.  Maintenance tasks may include repair of electrical and mechanical processes, such as replacing rolls on transfer lines, repairing hydraulic lines that control the shears, maintaining shears, etc.  Tasks might include welding, supervising cranes moving multi-ton equipment.

During outages, furnaces may be relined with refractory bricks.

DUST

Metal Dust from scale or slag or burning.  Metal dust can include iron, zinc and possibly trace amounts of more hazardous metals, including lead, cadium, nickel, etc.

ADDITIONAL LINKS TO KEY RESOURCES CONCERNING METAL DUST:

OSHA RESOURCES:

NIOSH RESOURCES:  

SILICA FROM BRICK OVEN

Links to Key Resources concerning silica:

OSHA: and

NIOSH:

OVERHEAD CRANES

BLOCK OR SUSPENDED LOADS CAN DROP-CABLE SAFETY.

OSHA – CRANE SAFETY:

MAINTENANCE HAZARDS

LOCK OUT/TAG OUT

 

   

OSHA Lock out/tag out Standard:       

Letters that show how OSHA has interpreted the need for lockout/tag out:  

SHARP EDGES:

WELDING:

NIOSH materials on welding/welding hazards:

OSHA materials on welding/welding hazards:

ERGONOMIC HAZARDS

• Reaching, lifting, pulling
• Shoveling
• Repetitive jobs that can also involve awkward posture and excessive force
• Prolonged sitting or standing

OSHA RESOURCES ON ERGONOMICS:

NIOSH RESOURCES on ERGONOMICS: 

WORK ORGANIZATION HAZARDS

• Fatigue, life disruption from swing shift
• Can’t leave your operator position or crane to go to bathroom
• Hazards associated with extended work hours and days
• Hazards associated with job combinations and lack of training
• Hazards associated with work intensification

MODULE ON WORK ORGANIZATION

NIOSH: (work schedules)

NIOSH: (Adobe pdf fact sheets)

INFREQUENT HAZARDS

• Confined space entry –work on the furnace during an outage

ADDITIONAL LINKS TO KEY RESOURCES:

OSHA RESOURCES ON CONFINED SPACES:

 

NIOSH RESOURCES ON CONFINED SPACES:

qUICK HEALTH AND SAFETY CHECK-Up

Are you experiencing health problems that you think might be related to your job?

This is a quick health and safety check-up.  Health and safety questions are often overlooked by doctors and nurses who don’t know about jobs in the steel mill and the hazards workers are exposed to.  The answers to these questions will help you discuss possible work-related symptoms and illnesses with your health care provider.  Know the hazards on your job. Think about symptoms or illnesses you are experiencing that could be related to those hazards. 

Find out if anyone else in your work area is having similar problems.

• Do you think you have a health problem that is related to work?
• What are the hazards on your job?
• What are the safety measures or protective equipment in place and/or that you use?
• Are your symptoms worse when you are at work?
• Do they get better when you have time away from work?
• Do any of your co-workers have the same symptoms?

Action Planning 

TAKE ACTION TO IMPROVE HEALTH & SAFETY!

FOR MEMBERS:

• Use the information from these materials to find information about the specific health and safety hazards on your job.
• Contact your local union’s health and safety committee to help evaluate the health and safety hazards on your job.
• Contact your union’s health and safety committee and ask them to conduct a walk-around inspection if you believe there are health and safety problems that need to be addressed.

FOR UNION MEMBERS SERVING ON HEALTH & SAFETY COMMITTEES:

• Survey SAMPLE HEALTH AND SAFETY members about health and safety concerns on their jobs. A simple survey can help identify problems and determine how widespread they are.
• Conduct one-on-one discussions with members about health and safety conditions on their jobs. This will give you more detailed information about problems. One-on-one communication is also useful in communicating follow-up actions and keeping members up-to-date on corrective actions.
• Review key documents such as OSHA logs of injures and illnesses (OSHA 300 Logs), operating procedures, inspection reports, copies of exposure monitoring data and composite results of employee medical examinations.
• Know health and safety rights under the union contract and how these may relate to problems in question.
• Know health and safety rights under federal and state health, safety and environmental laws and agencies (for example, OSHA, MSHA, EPA, state agencies and local ordinances) and how they might apply to the situation.
• Consult with your USW District Health and Safety Advisors (reach them through your staff and/or District Director) and/or the USW Health Safety and Environment Department (1-412-562-2581) to assist you as needed. They can also help in finding local resources to assist you.
• Identify solutions (short- and long-term, if needed) and make a plan to bring these recommendations to management. Compile the results of the union's investigations, surveys and research and craft the union's recommendations for eliminating/reducing the hazards and for assisting members who have been injured or made ill. Develop a time-frame in which you believe corrective actions should take place.
• Let your members know what you are doing on an on-going basis during the investigation of the problem and with the follow-up plan. 

Click Here to download a printable copy of the Hot Rolling Hazards Fact Sheet