shift manager

equipment operator

entry level operator

maintenance technician

mill operator

Cleveland-Cliffs

Former employee around 2001-05 (Rockport Maint.)
The start of your day you drive up to the entrance gate not knowing if your pass card would work (meaning u might have been fired, just don't know it yet).
There were extremely long work days without knowing what time you would be allowed to go home. They had to release you to go home, or your fired if you left. (They considered it as you walked off the job)
Some areas were extremely dangerous due to the chemicals used for their processes. Some chemicals there were reactive to each other... bad mix. Some of my fellow employees got really sick from there. Not virus sick either...
It was really hot in the summer, and cold in the winter. No AC other then in offices or break rms. The heaters were all locked out and we're not for human comforts. You see we found the original video tapes for the plants construction... explaining everything about its construction. The plant was built to be automated only. It was only after issues with the automated systems did they put people in there. That's why offices and break rms were movable structures put in after the fact. Very few were permanent structures.
The plant is very big so be ready to walk alot! (I wrote my time down in one building then drove 1 mile to the line I worked in,  then again before going home.) Especially if you have to go to venders city. That's where the venders were that supplied parts. Areas were you will work are the: APL, CPL, Cold roll, Hydrogen Anealing, and Galv. lines. When there was a downturn/Shut down on any line, be prepared to be sent there not knowing when you would get to leave. Some days your work days were 18hrs.
They had safety meetings at the beginning of the shift, and a huge lock out program with a safety coordinator. They really did try to make things safe... but any infraction you'd be drug tested and possibly terminated. I remember one lock out issue involving seven different lock boxes, they drug tested the lockout coordinator 7 times in that day/incident.
The HR guy was terminated after he slipped and fell on some ice one winter.
Oh lastly... watch out for the spys, and the cameras. They were everywhere.
Some people there were really good, while others were really bad... some were cut throats, even throwing you under the bus to protect their job.
Funniest day was when they cleared "the glass house", turning it into a ghost town. The company went on a mamagement firing spree. What was good about it was management always had the workers stressed out and on tip toes... that day was management's day to be stressed and on tip toes. They were hiding so not to be the next one. Lol
I did learn alot about the processes that made and rolled the material.
Company did have a spring picnic. All paid, and you can bring your family.
Would I work there again? Not unless it was all I could find...

They offer decent pay for what the job is, needs to be a lot more but it's decent to maintain a good life for your family who you will never see again. Benefits use to be ok, but as each year passes they get worse and worse.  I would imagine it's like that every where though.  Majority of upper management is horrible and got their jobs spending a large amount of time under a desk of some other knucklehead who spent most of his time under someone's desk to get his job.  If you want to be held down by some Section Manager who literally had zero qualifications to hold his job then this is the place for you.  If you want to spend literally all of your time at the mill and not see your family ever again then this is the place for you.  If you do ignore all the reviews and come work at AK, don't go above and beyond because it completely goes unnoticed unless you're willing to kiss allot of butt. This place drains the drive and motivation right out of you.  Raises, if you're lucky enough to get one are a joke and no where close to keeping you close to the industry standard.  Every improvement suggestion you make is turned down by some nutless wonder who is scared to make a decision because he "might have to go out front and talk about it". Then this guy who has been in a supervisory role for a lot less time than you tries to mentor you on how to be a supervisor during your annual eval.  It's all a joke. It is very cut throat between salary too, if you're more qualified than your boss then he will do everything in his power to hold you back to ensure you're not a threat to his job.  Very shady untrusting place, most managers would just as soon stab you in the back rather than promote a culture of teamwork if it means they get to be useless in their jobs for a day longer.  This could be an ok place to work if they could fix the work life balance, increase the pay, stopping messing with the benefits, change the cut throat management mentality,  stop pushing the us vs them between hourly and salary and realize it's one team one fight.  I literally look at job postings daily because I want out of this place so badly.

Under cliffs the morale is slowly changing to be good, but coming from a place that it never should have been and forced there through years of bad management tactics and A safety program enforced through their discipline program. under the old management there was a write up quota that was needed every month. years and years of this style of management and they wonder why the morale is so low and they cant get people to come in the door fast enough to replace the people that have left and will be leaving due to the pension crisis. It is going to take time but its a big step in the right direction. its swing shift meaning you will find it very hard to balance family/ work life. new hires get 2 weeks paid vacation which is nice but there is other places around that compete and offer more paid time off within your first year. in addition to the swing shift rotation you have the possibility to be "frozen" for an extra 8 hours  one time per week just to make the schedule that much more of a disaster.  your expected to work the overtime that you are scheduled with the opportunity to turn it down but if no-one takes the shift. its your responsibility. this place is greatly improving now while under new management. the morale is improving as well as the way that the managers manage. This is a very good place to make a living, but at a great cost due to the working schedule and environment. If your considering this as an opportunity you will have chances for advancement but it make take you years to get to where you want to be.   Day jobs are present here where a Monday through Friday schedule is obtainable but they are few and far between and the ones that are there are filled base upon seniority. if your hiring off the street your looking at one weekend off per month. and years worth of waiting for a day job. Still the same Old AK steel management staff just under a new hard hat and logo. This place will always have the same Stigma.

I enjoyed working at AK Steel because I never thought I would get the chance to work in a steel mill. I've learned that everyone has to do there part because when you don't it will always get found out. I enjoyed driving the forklift getting what was needed. I enjoyed my whole time at the steel mill because I would always here about how they were booming in times past. The management was real nice even though some of the managers never had any experience as a worker in the steel mill. Some came in as managers long ago but once there was a lock out then those managers got to experience first hand what is was like to work in a steel mill. If they didn't work then not only the union workers would lose there jobs but all of management would as well. The only thing that was hard for me was doing the swing shift. I prefer working in the day instead of the night although it's more relaxed at night. The most enjoyable part of the job was just working at the steel mill and meeting so many people that had come from every state and different countries to be there was good. My co-workers were good to know because everyone came from another state and they were easy going kind of guys. I enjoyed seeing not only males but females working there as well and many had greater skills than mine. It was a great learning experience working in a place I thought was dead because I never new anyone that was working in a steel mill before. They always would stress safety because when they lock out their workers and replace the with replacement workers now many of the supervisors with no experience in working there actually now get to do the work. Working at AK Steel was such a great experience, it was a lot of fun and I enjoyed learning about how steel is made and learning what it was like before the lock and seeing the changes as the lock in is happening.

Ak Tube sounded like a heavenly job, because they promise you so much during orientation. "You'll get opportunities", they said, "we care about our employees" they said and were "family oriented", well uk if  its too good to be true then that's exactly what it is!!!!!!! The managers are super weird, fake, disrespectful and extremely nosy. They don't do their jobs properly and they sabotage specific employees. They say they need people but do everything in their power to suspend, write up devalue and humiliate new and specific employees. The supervisors are allowed to yell at you,  lie on you and belittle you.  They are allowed to express racism as well and every time they do something wrong they never take accountability for their actions. They are also allowed to show favoritism and violate hippa regulations and tell peoples business to employees without getting in trouble. HR was a complete joke, they defend the supervisors in everything they do and no matter what the situation is, the employee is always blamed. They are not family oriented because they work you to death and point you for everything.  The employees pretend to be your friends just to see if you will tell your business so they can spread it. Most of the employees would say they hate their job but they were always kissing butt. This could have been a good place to work if the CEO cared enough to give the enployees managers that actually cared for the employees. They Showed lots of favoritism and s huge Lack of respect to workers. The 3rd shift supervisor was the worse, he gave the most write ups and never would teach you how to fix your mistakes, he was rude to blacks and Mexicans and only liked you if you kissed his butt!! 

If you have a family , if you have a somewhat of a life prior to aplying here DO NOT TAKE THIS JOB!  This place will suck the very life out of you!..I ve worked here for over 13 years only because of the pay and am in the process of trying to find something else.  Management  is horrible at best ..starting with lower and all the way up. They re out to get the hourly guy , you ll work 60 plus hours a week every week and they ll look for any reason to discipline you. Mistakes even the smallest ones causing no harm WILL NOT BE TOLERATED! !! And you ll be given days off without pay. Look forward to the discipline days off because that's all the days off you ll get. There's a catch with them though, don't let the days add up because they are ultimately using them to build a case against you and try to fire you . No matter how good of an employee you are. Part of salaries yearly bonus is based on discipline , that says it all to me folks and should u too. Cons ? Too many to name ..Let's see..No work life balance, no breaks , dangerous place that acts like saftey is a priority but is actually last on the list ..way behind  production,will lock you out, will lie to your face daily , will freeze you at the last minute for 16 hours and laugh about it, etc,etc,etc, . This is as bad  as it gets and never gets better I hope just one person applying there reads this and it makes them think as it would feel good knowing that I possibly helped someone from making a huge mistake . You will miss out on  your life working here people and get treated poorly  while doing it .

There is No Training, No Support, Management just has a Figure it out Attitude, To Many people seem to just point the finger onto others, instead working as a team to come up with fluid more efficient working experience (perhaps a lack of accountability,) Seems you only are able to Transition into other roles if you Know them from another Plant, Concerns are usually disregarded, Safety is only a concern if your under Investigations or Get thrown under the bus, Information seems to be "gatekeeping" in order to have Job Security and a way to get rid of others (its always someones word against others) as long you as your selfish individual enjoying getting by talking Down to others making others look bad and setting people up for failure, 
Unfortunately  Being a start up company for this long as large as the Company is as a whole you would think these issues wouldn't be taking this long iron out. 
tools tend to come up missing
aren't really able to fix things just band aid and blame on operators, HUGE lack of communication

it had some good points though if you were in good with someone you they seem to be very lenient on rules its definitely powered by favoritism, also if your needed or important you might not get lunch or breaks.

don't Except to move up unless you know someone even schooling seem to be a thing, note even if you have experience, They might hire a family member instead.

Cleveland-Cliffs expects you to basically give your life to them when you take a job here. They expect to come before anything else, emergency or not, in your life. There is a culture of politics where special treatment is given to others, such as same work duties and expectation but a $30k gap in salary. At one point a person resigned, and instead of replacing them, they assigned the work she was doing (a full time job plus my full time job duties) without compensation for this change. On month end close, late nights are a given, but it’s not acceptable to be forced to stay at work until 1am (16 hour day) and then expected to be back in the office at 6am. Comp days for this were rarely given, and if they were, there was rarely a time where you could take them. Comp days and Paid Time Off were hard to get approved when the calendar would be blocked every month for the whole department with days that you couldn’t take off, due to month end, forecasting and budgeting, and then preparing for month end. There was only about a week each month where you were allowed to ask off for time and get it approved. This caused build up of days and not being able to use them due to the restrictions put on when you could take off, especially with a whole department that can’t be off at the same time and has all the same restrictions. The management is petty and self righteous. 

I was responsible for ensuring equipment stayed running in order to turn steel slabs into coils. I learned the process to do this along with some very complicated equipment repairs. For the most part management was helpful. One of the down sides was some member of management did not adhere to the safety rules, regardless of how many times they were corrected by their subordinates. The hardest part of the job was working conditions. During the winter there was limited temperature control so the inside of the building was close to what it was outside in certain areas. Summer was the same way. The best part was the work force. There were many workers that excelled at their jobs and were very professional. Some I even had to ask to take a break due to working too hard. Management didn't always have their priorities in proper order. There were many things in the mill that needed fixed and the new Maintenance Manager was more concerned with painting some rigging equipment that was still clearly visible than properly working equipment. It also didn't help that coil production capacity was cut in half.

I am a contractor @ Dearborn works we do alot of outage and maintenance work in the mills all over the plant the hourly uaw personal that at most times we work hand in hand with are good people the saftey program there is ridiculous they are real hard on contractors but they are double standard when it comes to getting something up and running they treat their hourly people horrible and the maintenance supervisors quit regularly and go to us steel saftey is everyone's job but its like walking on eggshells wondering when your going to get sent to medical over minor stuff i hope the uaw settles their contract soon and get Detroit back on their feet as being a strong union city again instead of giving everything away and start fighting back for their people its a shame that they are breaking the unions down instead of standing up to the corporate world get with it all union reps and building trade bussiness managers need to get together and make this place union strong again instead of letting all the union guys walk around in misery this is not what we are about

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Shift manager 54 salaries reported	$91,944 per year
Equipment operator 24 salaries reported	$27.63 per hour
Entry level operator 16 salaries reported	$25.63 per hour
Maintenance technician 6 salaries reported	$32.01 per hour
Mill operator 10 salaries reported	$25.15 per hour

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