The Multi-Branch Craftsmen’s Cooperative in Bolesławiec has just “ticked off” 30 years of work in the local community. More importantly, the deserving jubilarian is holding up well in the difficult times of the economic crisis and has no intention of going bankrupt... How is this possible? We ask its president, Stanisław Domowicz.
- Since the date of our registration in 1962 by the Provincial Court in Legnica, we have experienced ups and downs, but our roots have always been firmly planted in the local community; we have served the city, gathering experience and drawing conclusions from subsequent “turns of history.” To this day, two of the founding members are alive and actively involved—Messrs Bolesław Kwiatkowski and Stanisław Ignaczak, who will confirm this opinion. We mainly relied on ourselves, believed in work and investment, and worked to build the reliability and reputation of the craftsman’s trade; that had to produce results. Today, for example, the cooperative has specialists in every construction trade, and we can build a house to order from the foundations to the roof, to the proverbial “turnkey” stage. This applies not only to homes, but even to entire factories.
A significant stage in the development of the RSW was the construction, at its own expense, of an office and warehouse complex in 1987–1989. We used the craftsmen’s money and settled the investment in full—and that is a local phenomenon. The “little palace” stands out; it even has a large club room, but above all it pays for itself through the building-materials wholesaler located on the ground floor, offering competitive prices.
RSW closed 1991 with a turnover of 17.5 billion złoty, of which 2.5 billion złoty enriched the city budget, not counting payroll taxes and other revenues. Let us also mention generous patronage for the increasingly impoverished Schools No. 3, 4, 8 and 9, the General Secondary School and the Children’s Home; assistance to the healthcare service in purchasing medicines; and, finally, the training of students by many craftsmen at their own expense. For many years, the craftsmen paid for the repair and maintenance of the town-hall clock, helped kindergartens, did not refuse assistance to city councillors, maintained the attractive condition of school interiors, and restored the façades of tenement houses around the Market Square—and elsewhere. The craftsmen’s latest achievement is the conversion and major renovation of the vocational school building on Świerczewskiego Street. We worked there from dawn to dusk, often on credit and on our word of honor, because education, after all, does not... exactly overflow with money... Today, the work speaks for the masters, so let us name several people who deserve particular recognition: Jan Oleśkow, Ryszard Boluk, Stanisław Nazar, Jan Roman, Ryszard and Bogusław Dzida, Zenon Neubauer, Kazimierz Wasilewski and Beniamin Abramowicz. This is also an undeniable success for the director of MZEAS, Ms Danuta Pielińska, who represented the investor—the Jelenia Góra Education Authority. It need hardly be added that we sometimes waited patiently for several months to be paid; in return, the city can envy its new school...
The gymnasium here should be ready by the end of the summer holidays, and construction of the connecting building—the school’s recreational facilities—could also be completed; the craftsmen are ready to undertake this work. They do not need advertising; they have simply proved themselves in the service of the city. MPGM has seen this, increasingly commissioning craftsmen to renovate the aging housing stock of the town on the Bóbr.
And one more important detail. This institution is a true mine of community-minded people—those selflessly committed to the local community. For many years, the long-serving president of TMB, Mr Edward Sobczyński, directed the work of RSW professionally, doing so exceptionally effectively. Is it any wonder that the ethos of work has remained here to this day—a value to which we are struggling to return in other institutions of collective life?
Does the local craft sector have a chance of surviving the economic crisis and continuing its patronage of the aging city?
P.S. It is in all our interests, and it is worth remembering.