Wadowicka Usługowa Spółdzielnia Pracy – zarys historii

The author describes one of the institutions operating in Wadowice after World War II: Wadowice Service Worker Cooperative ( Wadowicka Usługowa Spółdzielnia Pracy, previously operating as Wielobranżowa Spółdzielnia Pracy Wadowice). The text is another in the series of the history of cooperatives discussed by Andrzej Kotowiecki in issues 23 (2021) and 24 (2022) of the scientific yearbook „Wadoviana”. The development of the post-war cooperative movement was primarily the result of the socialist economy, which assumed the liquidation of small merchant and craft industries. A chance for survival was the cooperative movement, already active in the Wadowice region in the Galician period. In the 1950s, four smaller cooperatives were merged into the Powiatowa Spółdzielnia Usług Rzemieślniczych (Powiatowa Spółdzielnia Usług Rzemieślniczych) whose name was changed to Powiatowa Spółdzielnia Usług Wielobranżowych, producing, among other things, footwear and ready-to-wear. The institution developed dynamically in the 1960s and 1970s, expanding its infrastructure, plants and warehouses, and basing its staff on graduates of schools with practical vocational training. The crisis came in the 1980s, especially after the Sejm passed the Act on changes in the organization and activity of cooperatives. As of 2022, the cooperative’s assets consist of only four service establishments (in the late 1970s there were nearly 80). Due to the nature of a multi-branch organization, the contemporary Cooperative is based primarily on three industries: metal, automotive and renovation and construction.