Former VP Biden rallies with striking supermarket workers
BOSTON (AP) — Former Vice President Joe Biden attended a rally of striking supermarket workers in New England on Thursday, arguing that workers aren't being treated with enough respect.
Biden spoke at the gathering of unionized Stop & Shop employees outside a store in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood.
The 76-year-old Biden, mulling a run for the Democratic nomination for president, said workers at the supermarket chain are "not being treated across the board with dignity."
"We've got to start recognizing what people do, because it matters to everybody," Biden said. "It matters whether or not they feel respected. And I'm sick and tired, I'm sick and tired, of the way we're not being treated."
"Run Joe Run" signs were scattered around the union crowd as chants of "2020" and "Uncle Joe!" rang out when Biden made his way to talk.
Biden called President Donald Trump's tax cut "a scam," and said Wall Street, bankers and CEOs did not build America.
"You built America!" Biden said to the union crowd. "We built America. Ordinary middle class people built America."
United Food and Commercial Workers union members at 240 Stop & Shop stores in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut went on strike on April 11 to protest what they call cuts to health care and take-home pay in the company's latest contract proposal.
Stop & Shop, a division of Dutch company Ahold Delhaize, says it is offering across-the-board raises and "excellent" health care benefits that beat industry standards.
