THE HAVE-NOTS Conference aims to strengthen labor-activist ties BY BRIAN C. JONES

This year’s annual conference of the Rhode Island Campaign to Eliminate Childhood Poverty seeks to tighten traditional ties between organized labor and the community groups that try to improve the condition of low-income families and workers. Scheduled Saturday, February 7 at the Rhode Island Convention Center, the conference is being co-sponsored by the Rhode Island AFL-CIO and Citizens Bank. The keynote speaker is Linda Chavez-Thompson, executive vice president of the national AFL-CIO.

In addition, one conference workshop will include an issue important to labor: a Wal-Mart proposal to expand its Woonsocket store into a "super-center" that will include a big grocery operation. The United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents employees at Shaw’s and Stop & Shop supermarkets, has been trying to block a sale of city land for the expansion. Wal-Mart is non-union, and labor officials, as well as some supermarket workers, say they fear a bigger Wal-Mart could drive out one of the existing supermarkets and lead to an overall reduction of worker benefits. Henry Shelton, of the George Wiley Center in Pawtucket, which is organizing the conference, says that links between anti-poverty groups and labor have generally been close over the years. George Nee, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, and Scott Molloy, a labor professor at the University of Rhode Island, have been past conference speakers. But this year, Shelton says, strengthening ties at the "grassroots" level is a focus.

The conference, which usually attracts about 300 people, sets the agenda for the anti-poverty efforts that often play out the rest of the year in a variety of community and government forums.

This year, for example, a workshop will be devoted to "affordable energy," and the so-far unsuccessful effort by Shelton and others to get the state to subsidize natural gas and electricity for low-income households. The Public Utilities Commission last year rejected a plan — developed in part by previous Childhood Poverty Conference workshops — to limit the energy bills of low-income households to seven percent of their incomes, with the utilities’ ratepayers picking up the difference. A bill in support of a similar plan is expected to be introduced during this General Assembly session.

Another hot-button issue will be the purchase of lower-cost prescription drugs from Canadian outlets. Michael J. Albano, the former mayor of Springfield, Massachusetts, will discuss how that city set up a buying program for city workers. Filling out the conference will be a discussion of the shortage of affordable housing in Rhode Island, and continuing attempts to reduce the number of children who don’t get enough to eat.

The conference plans to issue an award to Governor Donald L. Carcieri — although it’s not clear whether the chief executive will make an appearance, as he has in other years — Shelton says.

Shelton said while there are plenty of areas of disagreement between the Carcieri administration and conference-goers — starting with organized labor’s opposition to the governor’s proposed state employee benefit cuts – Carcieri has responded to two pleas for help from anti-poverty forces during the past year. The governor supplied funds to help poor families get their heat turned on this winter; and last summer, he allocated money for summer youth jobs in five cities.

The conference runs from 8:45 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. For information, call the George Wiley Center, (401) 728-5555. Registration fees are $15 for low-income people, students, and the elderly, and $40 for others. Shelton says no one will be turned away for inability to pay. Convention Center parking is free for attendees.