MECHANISMS

«I come here and work because I have to. As a working mechanism. I try not to show here at work that I feel bad. But when I get home, I lock myself in the bathroom and I need half an hour to come to my senses. It’s very hard to stand on your feet all day, not everyone is able to do this. It's hard work» — says Alexander Novak, a machine operator.

Most of the production in the workshops is eventually automated, but if «Metalloshtamp» leaves manual labor, the enterprise will cease to exist. Here they appreciate manual labor and continue to accept orders for parts that can be made manually on old equipment. The company is trying to survive: it is looking for orders, watching the market and trying to develop new areas of work.

«Metalloshtamp» (Russian for «Metal Stamp'') plant initially specialized in the work of the blind and visually impaired, but over time people with all categories of disabilities began to be hired. Now 68 people work here: 16 are blind, and all the rest are people with other disabilities.

The company produces metal products made by cold stamping. This technological process makes it possible to obtain flat or volumetric finished products of various shapes and sizes. The working tool is a stamp that is fixed in the press. During the shift, the stamper must make four thousand parts.

In total, there are about 150 enterprises of the all-Russian Society of the Blind, and many of them open automated workshops where people without disabilities are recruited. There are no educational organizations in Orel that train the blind in any specialties, so the company trains people itself and selects a person for such a job that he will succeed at.