Buy local
BRAINTREE -- Every company should have such an enthusiastic workforce.
One woman walks four miles to work every day. Another spends four hours a day on buses and trains. On snow days, when the place is closed, people still show up to work. A couple of years back, when the company was near collapse, people continued to report for work every morning -- even after they had been laid off.
If manufacturing is in trouble in Massachusetts, if loyalty is an outmoded concept in the workplace, both are alive and well here at an inspiring little company called Employ + Ability. This is no ordinary manufacturing plant. Of the 66 people who work here, 45 of them are disabled -- though hardly in spirit. They are mentally disabled. They are blind. They are deaf. And they have much to teach us about life and work.
There are no handouts, not for the company, not for employees. Employ + Ability, a nonprofit, gets no -- zero -- government subsidies. The median wage is $9.50 a hour, and the job comes with health and dental insurance and vacation and sick pay. Workers who receive Social Security disability pay give back a dollar for every dollar they make here. ''These people just want to work," says James Middleton, the company's president.
Some of these people, who punch out thousands of hot and cold packs a day used to treat sports injuries, have traveled further than any of us ever will. Artemus Hough is 49, is a Red Sox fan, and has worked here for 18 years. He lived his entire life with his mom in a Brockton apartment, struggling to care for her in the final days of her life. Since her death three years ago, he has moved to a group home in Avon. He goes bowling and to the movies. He has lost 150 pounds and is down to 270. ''I'm doing great," he says.
Trevor MacLeod, 30, has moved out of his parents house and in with his girlfriend since he started here three years ago. Mike Sheehan will proudly tell you he makes 3,000 cold packs a day, more than anyone in the place. Mary Tennyson has been here 20 years. Joe Mullen, blind from birth, is making a lot more money than when he was paid by the piece at another workshop for the disabled.
Employ + Ability is a low-tech manufacturer and packager for such companies as Johnson & Johnson, Tyco Healthcare, Inverness Medical, and Collins Sports Medicine. Its biggest competitor: China.
The company almost failed two years ago when its largest customer moved a $10 million contract to China. Sales plunged to $4 million from $14 million. A layoff followed. Back-to-back presidents were moved out. Complaints by a former executive about employee abuse were investigated and dismissed by the attorney general's office.
But the company has rebounded, thanks to an active board that personally wrote big checks and hired new management. Middleton, the president, says the business is stable, but hardly assured. Artie Hough and his colleagues want to work. Local companies in need of a reliable contract manufacturer can reach them at (781) 356-8888.
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Neighborhood news: What did Herald owner Pat Purcell say to New York Times chief executive Janet Robinson? New York Times chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. was in town yesterday for a pep talk at the Globe, a week after Robinson was here. While in Boston, Robinson met with Purcell, at his invitation, according to multiple executives. Top executives meet all the time, of course. But it is no secret that Purcell is shopping his struggling company. Possible topics: the Times' interest in Purcell's papers (the answer was no) or possibly printing the Herald at the Globe. (The Globe is discussing a similar deal with the New York Post.) A Times spokeswoman declined to comment. Purcell didn't return my call.
Steve Bailey is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at bailey@globe.com or at 617-929-2902. 
