Factory of dreams
Yi Qin helps aworkerwith a packing procedure. Photo by Cheng Ming / For China Daily |
The local government has honored the factory as a demonstration food-safety enterprise every year and has given it a score of 99.7 percent out of 100.
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The products are sold in nearly 700 supermarkets in Hubei and metropolises like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
But the company's success has generated demand that outstrips capacity. It often sells out of stock.
Yi offers packing - the simplest procedure - as an example.
Intellectually disabled workers can at most pack 600 units a day, while people without disabilities can pack more than 3,000.
And demand is fueled by the fact that Dongfanghong is the last traditional milk cake manufacturer. This led nine companies to approach the factory for partnerships. But no agreements could be reached because those enterprises refused to keep the mentally disabled workers.
None of the plant's employees were mentally challenged from its 1997 founding until 2005.
In 2002, Yi learned that if she hired disabled workers, she'd be exempt from paying 20,000 yuan (3,300) annually for tax.
"We hired two disabled workers for sort of selfish reasons," she recalls.
"But more disabled children's parents kept asking us to hire their kids."
The employees without disabilities disliked this.
They felt the disabled workers dragged down efficiency. Also, the intellectually disabled employees would tattle when others cut corners.
Revenge came in curses and beatings when Yi wasn't around. But Yi stood up for the disabled.
One by one, the other workers left.
But Yi discovered a bright side to this.
"The people with mental disabilities are much stricter about following rules," she says.
So, she had them run the assembly line.
"Some people called me crazy," Yi says.
"They said I was trying to make an iron tree blossom and to make the mute speak. Their worlds are very simple. You can understand them if you make yourself think like a child."