Sonderling, NAM, MI Tour Nucor Facility, Talk Investment, Safety and Workforce

Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling recently visited Nucor Steel Berkeley in South Carolina alongside NAM and Manufacturing Institute leaders to see American steelmaking firsthand and discuss the company’s investments, safety culture and workforce.

• Visits like this one give administration officials a firsthand look at the investments manufacturers are making—and the skilled workforce needed to sustain them.

The event: Sonderling and Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health David Keeling joined Nucor executives and a joint NAM–MI delegation for a roundtable on Nucor’s operations, investments, workforce development programs, safety culture and role in U.S. manufacturing, followed by a tour of the Berkeley mill in Huger, South Carolina.

• At the roundtable, Carolyn Lee, president of the MI (the NAM’s 501(c)3 workforce development and education affiliate), discussed the MI’s Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education (FAME) program and the growing importance of AI skills for the manufacturing workforce.
• Meanwhile, NAM representatives discussed its support for administration-proposed changes to several labor and employment laws, including the joint employer and independent contractor rule and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s heat standard.

The company: Nucor is the largest steel producer in America and the only producer among the world’s 30 largest steel producers (by volume) to make 100% of its steel in the U.S., using electric arc furnaces that melt recycled scrap into new steel.

• Its 27 mills produce roughly one-quarter of all steel made in the U.S., and the company employs more than 33,000 teammates at 300-plus locations.

Safety first: Safety is Nucor’s No. 1 value, and the company has partnered with OSHA since 2005 through the agency’s Voluntary Protection Program, which recognizes worksites whose injury and illness prevention programs go beyond regulatory compliance.

• Nucor’s companywide injury and illness rate has fallen every year since 2017, reaching 0.71 OSHA recordables per 200,000 hours in 2025. Its steel mills’ rate is roughly one-third of the domestic steel industry average, as company leaders told Sonderling.
• Nucor leaders discussed the company’s effort to move up the “hierarchy of controls”—improving safety through technology and the team’s innovation with AI-enabled hazard recognition and equipment design to engineer risk out of the process.

Growth trajectory: Nucor, which is featured in the NAM’s recent flipbook of 50 manufacturing success stories across 50 states, has invested approximately $23 billion in U.S. growth projects since 2018, creating more than 40,000 jobs, and set a record $3.42 billion in capital investment in 2025.

• The company is nearing completion on the construction of its newest steel mill—Nucor Steel West Virginia—a $3.65 billion sheet mill that is the largest economic development project in the state’s history.
• Berkeley itself is adding $625 million for a new air separation unit and second galvanizing line slated to come online this fall.

Sonderling says: At Nucor Steel Berkeley, “I discussed the future of American manufacturing and saw its steel production firsthand,” Sonderling, who was confirmed this week as labor secretary with the NAM’s support, posted on X. “With tens of millions more being invested to expand production, Nucor is continuing to grow its American manufacturing footprint.”