No place to go
Gardner plant seeks more work for its developmentally disabled employees
At Coleman Assembly and Packaging Inc. in Gardner, 20 to 30 people with developmental disabilities gather at long tables each day to make kits, package products and do all kinds of simple manufacturing tasks.
Without the plant, the people who work there might otherwise find it impossible to get work, and the companies that subcontract work to Coleman they don't want to do themselves would be stuck looking for other affordable assembly options.
However, some companies have already found other affordable assemblers - in China - and over the past few years there's been less work for Coleman employees to do.
The Coleman plant is run by an organization previously called the Gardner-Athol Area Mental Health Association, which now goes by GAAMHA. GAAMHA business manager Christine Cota said many companies have stopped sending their jobs to Coleman.
"They'll release their work to China because China pays 14 cents per hour," she said.
Packaging and unpacking
As a result, Coleman finds itself in the same situation, and has taken to assembling house-designed knickknacks to pass the time between jobs.
GAAMHA recently hired Allyson Chalapatas, a former staffer at the Greater Gardner Chamber of Commerce, as the company's first full-time director of sales and employment. Chalapatas spends her days talking with area businesses and explaining what Coleman has to offer. At the same time, she's also developing lines of jewelry, magnets and other items that Coleman can manufacture itself and sell to area gift shops and other retailers.
"If business is not coming in then we have to figure out a way to create it," she said.
Currently, Coleman has two business clients that it does work for every day, Anderson Products, a Worcester-based abrasives company, and Biomedical Polymers of Gardner. Largely to handle its work packaging medical supplies for Biomedical Polymers, Coleman opened its own clean room about two years ago.
Other companies contract with the assembly plant on a less regular basis. Chalapatas said with so many local companies sending jobs overseas, Coleman finds work taking items assembled in China out of the large packages they are shipped in and repackaging them for local delivery.
Anderson Products plant manager Joe Lavin said his company has reduced the amount of work it sends to Coleman since being purchased by Weiler Corp. of Pennsylvania a few years ago, but he said he still sees the facility as a useful partner. Lavin said shipping costs make it too expensive for Anderson to send work out of the country. As for keeping assembly work in house, he said the labor costs would be higher, and many workers would balk at tasks like repeatedly gathering lengths of wire into bundles.
Strung along
In fact, Lavin said, even the work that has gone to Pennsylvania is now being done by developmentally disabled workers at a facility similar to Coleman, and Anderson has also sent work to another facility that employs people with disabilities at the Seven Hills Foundation in Worcester. He said some local companies may not know about the services provided by the nonprofit groups, but many might benefit from working with them.
"I think they could do many different jobs for a variety of companies," he said. "I'd say packaging and letter stuffing or mailings or things like that, simple assembly."
Even when little work is available, GAAMHA staff finds "training assignments" like stringing beads or learning to count change for the Coleman workers. Since part of the employees' pay comes from the state Department of Mental Retardation anyway, the organization can find extra money to make up for the funds that are not coming in from outside companies. But every DMR dollar that goes to pay the workers is one that GAAMHA can't spend on the other services it offers. Cota said many companies do not realize that the state does not pay Coleman employees' entire salaries.
"It's tough when we go out to bid jobs," she said. "They assume that the state pays us for these people, that they cover all the costs."
In fact, Cota and Chalapatas said, Coleman employees are just like any other production workers in many ways and are often actually more dedicated to their jobs. Many, like Donald Monterro, who lives in a group home and works in Coleman's clean room, say they absolutely love what they do.
"I'm on the go," Monterro said. "Work, work, work. I like to do my thing."
Of course, like most other workers, Monterro also likes spending his paycheck. He said he is currently planning a trip to Las Vegas to play the slots.
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