Metalúrgica San José Artesano - Our beginnings

Our beginnings

At the beginning of our company,, Metalúrgica San José Artesano, work together, as we have done until now, know a little more about our foundation:

In a very unfavorable situation economically, in 1964, a group of self-employed, engaged in forging and metalwork we set up a co-operative and artisan production.

We had, in principle, with few things: traditional tools of various workshops, hard work and good will of simple workers. We started thinking about the possibility of having a warehouse to allow a place of business, warehouse and other facilities, meanwhile, functioned with various private workshops that were made available for common use.

We drafted a charter and immediately named a board leadership, consisting of the following members:

• President: Francisco Rueda Valverde.
• Vicepresident: Fco. Doroteo Hidalgo Pérez.
• Secretary: Antonio Pérez Montoya.
• Treasurer: José González Gálvez.
• Members: Florentín Montoya Cano y Demetrio Alamedas González.

The other founding members were:

• Juan Montoya Cano.
• Leoncio Castillo Martín.
• Rafael González Gálvez.
• Fco. Doroteo Hidalgo Pérez (hijo).
• Antonio Armenteros Expósito.
• Antonio Sánchez Martínez.
• Cecilio Armenteros Estop.
• Manuel Alamedas González.

That project needed funding, so we asked various banks credits: one hundred thousand pesetas in the Rural hundred and fifty thousand in Spanish Credit Bank, being the partners themselves who guaranteed the applications.

The Labor Ministry agreed to the request and the February 10, 1965 is published in the Official Gazette the official approval of our cooperative society, registered under number being 12,152.

We started our journey our way through the official metallurgical market. The orders increased and surpassed the local level. Economic balances that first year were positive, paliamos some debts and made investments in machinery (constant in the history of our cooperative). Also, part of the allocate profits to charity.
 
In this first year of life, our cooperative has its first facilities: a small ship in Montefrío road.

In 1968, the city of Jaen which was granted us our first award, on the occasion of a contest held at the fair in San Lucas.

In 1969 we made new approaches: allocate funds for cultural education and professional books need to acquire in order to create a small library to serve specific technical support staff responsible for programming projects and visits to other cooperatives in the metallurgical sector, the more experienced points of Spain. In addition, we opened a new facility.

In later years we had constant changes and changes in the organization of our cooperative, we expanded the facilities, acquire new projects and purposes, we are making investments.

In 1989, our company adheres to the Andalusian Cooperative Federation (FUCA). It is a good time for us. We had a lot of work commissioned and slope, so we felt the need to hire foreign workers to society.

In 1994 we became part of the Andalusian Federation of Worker Cooperatives Companies (FAECTA).

In 1998 we began work for new installations: about six thousand square meters for workshops, warehouses, offices and other spaces. These, they have begun in May 2000.

As has happened with the physical space, over the years of living in Metalurgica San José Artesano we have also seen how to extend our range of activities, ranging today from the repair to the construction of industrial machinery, rubber, plastic and other, through metalwork, assembly plant and steel structures, the boiler and the lock work.