Waltham's Queen Screw And Manufacturer Adjusts Amid Coronavirus

WALTHAM, MA — For decades, the family owned Waltham's Queen Screw has manufactured components for medical and chemical industries five days a week and business has ebbed and flowed as owner Dominic DeJulio oversaw operations.

Then the pandemic hit and a number of businesses, including manufacturers in the commonwealth were forced to close. It was only May 18 that the state announced manufacturers could reopen.

Queen Screw on Farwell Street was considered an essential business and was one of the businesses able to stay open throughout the coronavirus crisis. And although business has dipped, the owners and employees have taken it in stride, keeping their distance, wearing gloves and masks and utilizing new hand sanitizing and washing stations around the manufacture floor.

The biggest difference? Dominec DeJulio who has come to work nearly every day since he started the company in 1966 does not come to work anymore. At 87, he falls into the category of high risk for the virus and has been staying home.

"He's been upset about this," his son, co-owner and president of the company Michael DeJulio said. "This is his lifeblood."

And not having him around has been strange. The younger DeJulio has been working alongside his father for some 40 years. Dominec is still involved, of course, just from afar.

The other noticeable change? Business is slow.

"There hasn't been much work coming in the last month or so," said Michael DeJulio. "The past month —it was half of what we did in the past. We were effected in that matter."

He said there are natural ebbs and flows, and he suspects the recent downturn is because of the virus, but can't be sure. He did have to lay off one employee and has cut out overtime for now.

"We're hoping that once these phases pass, things will start getting back to normal and trickle down to everybody," he said.

But other changes associated with new regulations have become commonplace, DeJulio said.

For a few weeks the business switched to a longer four day work-week to help minimize exposure. He's installed sanitization stations, and in one spot where two workers are close together, they've put up a 4x8 polycarbonate barrier to help keep those two keep separate.

For the rest of the workers, the factory is big enough that the staff have had at least enough distance between them to keep 6-feet from each other. But amid the heat and humidity of the machines, it can be difficult to breathe while working when not wearing masks, so with masks it can feel oppressive, DeJulio said. Still, although work has dipped, the sanitization and the masks have become rather normal in the past couple of months.

When two of the factory's 48 employees tested positive — they were both out for about three or four weeks— for the coronavirus it scared the rest of the workers.

"You can take all the precautions at work and still, you can't control what's going on outside," DeJulio said.

Overall DeJulio said employees are taking it in stride, and he feels optimistic.

"We're fortunate that we've been able to go to work, and almost not skip a beat," he said. "We've been able to have employees work 40 hours throughout this whole thing. We're pretty fortunate here, even though sales have been down this past month, there's still enough to keep the team busy and I anticipate overtime kicking back in pretty soon."

Founded in 1966 in Sudbury and then moved to Waltham in 1980, it changed location to where it currently sits in 1994. Queen Screw and Manufacturing, Inc. specializes in the precision machining of plastic components for the medical, instrumentation, microwave, electronics, and chemical equipment industries.

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Patch reporter Jenna Fisher can be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna).Have a press release you'd like posted on the Waltham Patch? Here's how to post a press release, opinion piece.