The United States Steel Corporation (NYSE: X) is an integrated steel producer with major production operations in the United States and Central Europe. The company is the world's seventh-largest steel producer ranked by sales (see list of steel producers). It was renamed USX Corporation in 1991 and subsequently United States Steel Corporation again in 2001 when the shareholders of USX spun off its steel-making assets following the acquisition of Marathon Oil in 1982. It is still the largest domestically owned integrated steel producer in the United States, although it produces only slightly more steel than it did in 1902.
U.S. Steel is a former Dow Jones Industrial Average component listed from April 1, 1901 to May 3, 1991. It was removed under its USX Corporation name with Navistar International and Primerica Corporation.

History
U.S. Steel maintained the labor policies of Andrew Carnegie, which called for low wages and limited unionization. The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers union that represented workers at the Homestead, Pennsylvania plant was, for many years, broken after a violent strike in 1892. U.S. Steel defeated another strike in 1901, the year it was founded. U.S. Steel built the city of Gary, Indiana in 1906, and 100 years later it remains the location of the largest integrated steel mill in the Northern Hemisphere. U.S. Steel did reach an impasse with unions during World War I, when under pressure from the Wilson Administration it relaxed its opposition to unions enough to allow some to operate in certain factories. It returned to its previous policies as soon as the war ended, however, and in a 1919 strike defeated union organizing efforts by William Z. Foster of the AFL, later a leader of the Communist Party of the United States of America.
During the 1920s, U.S. Steel, like many other large employers, coupled paternalistic employment practices with "employee representation plans" (ERPs), which were company unions sponsored by management. Ironically, these ERPs eventually became an important factor leading to the organization of the United Steelworkers of America. The Company dropped its hard-line, anti-union stance in 1937, when Myron Taylor, then president of U.S. Steel, agreed to recognize the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, an arm of the CIO led by John L. Lewis. Taylor was an outsider, brought in during the Great Depression to rescue U.S. Steel, and had no emotional investment in the Company's long history of opposition to unions. Watching the upheaval caused by the United Automobile Workers' successful sit-down strike in Flint, Michigan, and convinced that Lewis was someone he could deal with on a businesslike basis, Taylor sought stability through collective bargaining.
The Steelworkers continue to have a contentious relationship with U.S. Steel, but far less so than the relationship that other unions had with employers in other industries in the United States. They launched a number of long strikes against U.S. Steel in 1946 and 1959, but those strikes were over wages and benefits and not the more fundamental issue of union recognition that led to violent strikes elsewhere.
In 1959, a 116-day strike had a significant long-term effect on union-versus-management relations at U.S. Steel by shutting down 90 percent of total U.S. steel production. This strike opened the door to steel imports, which had been a negligible factor before then, and the long decline of the United States steel industry had begun. By the end of the 20th century, thousands of unionized steelworker jobs would be permanently lost due to the effects of lower-cost imported steel.
The Steelworkers union attempted to mollify the problems of competitive foreign imports by entering into a so-called Experimental Negotiation Agreement (ENA) in 1974. This was to provide for arbitration in the event that the parties were not able to reach agreement on any new collective bargaining agreements, thereby preventing disruptive strikes. The ENA failed to stop the decline of the steel industry in the U.S.
U.S. Steel and the other employers terminated the ENA in 1984. In 1986, U.S. Steel locked out thousands of its employees when it shut down a number of its facilities as a result of a drop in orders on the eve of a threatened strike. In addition, U.S. Steel and other steel producers demanded extensive concessions from their employees in the early 1980s through the direction of J Bruce Johnston, U.S. Steel executive vice president. In a letter to striking employees in 1986, J. Bruce Johnston warned, "There are not enough seats in the steel lifeboat for everybody." In addition to reducing the role of unions, the steel industry had sought to induce the federal government to take action to counteract dumping of steel by foreign producers at below-market prices. Neither the concessions nor anti-dumping laws have restored the industry to the health and prestige it once had.

Labor
U.S. Steel is the second-greatest corporate producer of air pollution in the United States; the company releases more than 1.26 million kg (2.8 million lbs.) of toxins annually, chiefly ammonia, hydrochloric acid, ethylene, zinc compounds, methanol, and benzene, but including manganese, cyanide, and chromium compounds.
It should be noted, however, that with the exception of the Fairless Hills facility, the lawsuits concern facilities acquired via U.S. Steel's purchase of National Steel Corporation in 2003.

Dividends
U.S. Steel has multiple domestic and international facilities. Of note in the United States is Clairton Works and Edgar Thomson Works, both members of Mon Valley Works and just outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Clairton Works is the largest and most environmentally friendly coking facility in North America. Edgar Thomson Plant is one of the oldest steel mills in the world. The Company acquired Great Lakes Works and Granite City Works, both large integrated steel mills, in 2003 and is partnered with Severstal North America in operating the world's largest electro-galvanizing line, Double Eagle Steel Coating Company, at the historic Rouge complex in Dearborn, Michigan.
U.S. Steel's largest domestic facility is Gary Works, in Gary, Indiana; Gary is also home to the U.S. Steel Yard baseball stadium.
U.S. Steel operates Fairfield Works in Fairfield, Alabama (Birmingham), employing 1500 people, and still operates a sheet galvanizing operation at the Fairless Works facility Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania, employing 75 people.
Recently, U.S. Steel added facilities in Texas with the purchase of Lone Star Steel Company and is in a venture in Pittsburg, California with Pohang Iron & Steel of South Korea.