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STEELMEN credit him with the major reorganization of Big Steel that eliminated the sprawling semi-autonomous subsidiaries, turned them into divisions of one central corporation that took responsibility for both policy and production. He pushed hard for a standard cost system throughout the company. He expanded its savings plan, whereby the company matches every dollar saved by its nonunion employees (the union turned down the plan) with 50¢ of its own, and he broadened the incentive program, which now covers 75% of all employees either through cash awards for production ideas or through stock options. Blough, who himself picked up most of his 19,302 shares of U.S. Steel stock (worth $1,800,000) through options, considers the incentive program "one of the great factors in the progress of the corporation." He points proudly to the fact that U.S. Steel's first-quarter profit of 9.9% on sales was the highest among the industry's major companies.
In Pittsburgh, where he spends a third of his working time at the operating headquarters, his home is a suite of rooms atop the Mellon-U.S. Steel Building; in Manhattan, his home is a Park Avenue apartment minutes away from the corporate policymaking headquarters. He often starts his day at 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. sitting quietly in his den or kitchen working out corporate problems on a yellow pad of legal paper, and his workday rarely ends before 7 or 8. His free time is generally spent with his wife in a sprawling Victorian house in Hawley, Pa.; it is her family home and they were married there, have never given it up. He likes trout fishing, golf (with luck, under 90), and singing hymns (he is a Presbyterian) and folk songs. He is an enthusiastic cook. Special ties: doughnuts, Pennsylvania Dutch coffeecake, and fluffy pancakes—for which his secret is a pinch of salt in the pan.
Blough found time to lay out his business philosophy in three lengthy lectures delivered recently at Columbia University. He feels that it is time to "raise the question as to whether the original purpose so many sincere people had in fostering the cause of unions has somehow gotten out of hand. The glacierlike forces of a powerful labor movement, including unions representing workers in hundreds of competitive groups, adopt objectives that largely contradict the competitive principle itself." They also imperil profits, the chief means to improve production. "All consumers benefit from improved tools of production, which profits must pay for, and competition is what provides the environment in which profits are created." Yet today, says Blough, wages and costs have spiraled so far out of line that enough profits cannot be accumulated to buy the needed new tools.