Reporter’s Notebook: Say What? The Head of NYC’s Largest Public Sector Union Doesn’t Think Home Care Workers Have ‘Skin on the Line?’
District Council 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido was all smiles at last week’s union demonstration against the No More 24 bill. Photo/Joe Maniscalco
By Joe Maniscalco
The head of the largest public sector union in the City of New York and his lieutenants said a lot jaw-dropping things this past Wednesday in opposition to No More 24 advocates fighting to end exploitation and institutionalized wage theft in the home care industry.
But arguably one of the the most egregious things said at the dueling No More 24 rallies outside City Hall on May 20 came when District Council 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido claimed that it’s easy to protest and demand an end to round-the-clock shifts “when your skin isn’t on the line…when you don’t need care at 3 in the morning.”
Opponents of Intro. 303, Council Member Chris Marte’s bill seeking to ban round-the-clock shifts in New York City’s home care industry, insist there’s no money to pay for 12-hour split shifts and that clients needing 24-hour care will lose it and be forced into nursing homes if the City Council bill is passed.
Members of DC37 hold placards declaring, “Don’t Ban Our Shifts” during May 20’s demonstration against Intro. 303—the No More 24 bill.
No More 24 advocates call that fear-mongering and wonder why Garrido and DC37 haven’t been in the streets with them at any point in the last 10 years of the No More 24 campaign demanding a break from the status quo and a system that continues to center profit-driven private insurance companies at the expense of workers and clients alike.
That said, it is another thing entirely to look at home care workers who have for years performed slavish round-the-clock shifts to the detriment of their bodies—and are owned hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid wages in some cases—and say that their skin isn’t on the line.
Home care workers who have repeatedly rallied, held sit-ins, and gone on hunger strike outside City Hall in support of No More 24 legislation have also consistently said that theirs is a generational fight because they refuse to sit by and watch their children or anybody else’s children forced into jobs that subject them to round-the-clock shifts at sub-minimum wage pay.
Claims that home care workers fighting for No More 24 legislation haven’t put their skin on the line working round-the-clock shifts would be reprehensible enough if they were coming from some loudmouth schmuck sitting down at the end of the bar somewhere, but coming from one of the most powerful labor union heads in the City of New York should trouble trade unionists in every sector of the economy.
Garrido is not only the head of the largest public sector union in New York City, he’s also acting chair of the Municipal Labor Committee, and the MLC ostensibly represents 400,000 trade unionists throughout the five boroughs.
If Garrido thinks home care workers’ skin “isn’t on the line,” then maybe he ought to step aside and find another gig that pays him a six-figure salary because throwing up his hands in the face of institutionalized wage theft and demeaning the older immigrant women of color who deliver most of the home care in New York City just isn’t a good look.
As bad as all that, DC37 Local 389 President Margaret Glover was just as terrible from a labor point of view when she claimed during last Wednesday’s City Hall demonstrations that many of the roughly 5,000 home care workers she represents “want the 24 hours.”
"We don’t complain,” Glover told Work-Bites. “We do the hours.”
The head of Local 389 then capped it all by declaring that her members should be getting paid more—“but what can you do?”
“How many out there think the AFL-CIO should just go ahead and adopt “We should be getting paid more—but what can you do?” as the official rallying cry of the American labor movement in 2026?”
Supine, self-interested union heads and exploited workers who don’t complain—what more could a boss want?
How many out there think the AFL-CIO should just go ahead and adopt “We should be getting paid more—but what can you do?” as the official rallying cry of the American labor movement in 2026?
Sadly, DC37 Local 389 President Margaret Glover’s sentiments are emblematic of the way too many union leaders occupying the highest echelons of the American labor movement think.
Three years ago, CWA Local 1180 President and MLC trustee Gloria Middleton tried to rationalize DC37’s campaign to strip municipal retirees of their Traditional Medicare benefits and push them into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan by declaring that if the federal government would ever come up with universal health care the union would be “first on board with that.”
Home care workers and No More 24 advocates at last week’s street actions outside City Hall jeer DC37’s opposition to City Council Member Chris Marte bill seeking to end round-the-clock shifts in New York City’s home care industry.
“But until the federal government does something like that—that’s tangible, that’s something that can be used across the nation—you know, we have to deal with these insurance companies,” the Local 1180 head told Work-Bites. “We just have no choice in that because that’s the world.”
Interesting to note here that the New York Health Act seeks to establish single payer, universal healthcare in the state—but, go figure, Garrido and DC37 steadfastly opposes that effort, too.
Trying to convince the public that workers are actually clamoring for the exploitative conditions they are subjected to is a favorite trope anti-worker forces and their class collaborators never tire of trodding out.
New Yorkers see it in the fight to end slavish round-the-clock shifts in the home care industry, and they see it in the deep-pocketed campaign against the Delivery Protection Act which seeks to stop Amazon and other conglomerates from further exploiting workers employed in the “last mile” delivery sector.
Writer Director Boots Riley savagely lampoons the “workers want this” trope in his wildly surrealistic heist comedy “I Love Boosters.”
Garrido got a lavish introduction before taking to the podium at last Wednesday’s DC27 demonstration against the NO More 24 bill where he was lauded as a leader who “stands up for democracy.”
This is demonstrably false. Garrido has held DC37’s reins for a dozen years. That ain’t democratic. Billionaire Mayor Mike Bloomberg had to strong-arm the City Council to overturn term limits to hold on for that long. Garrido didn’t have to go to the trouble because entrenched political power inside many labor unions today is also treated as just the “way of the world.”
Hard to imagine how Garrido or any other similar union head will be able to make a peep when Trump decides he’s not going anywhere at the end of his second term.
On March 19, City Council Speaker Julie Menin stood on the sidewalk outside City Hall with a group of older home care workers on Day 2 of their City Hall sit-in and promised to bring the No More 24 bill to the floor of the City Council for a vote the following month.
That didn’t happen. And it didn’t happen in large part because of opposition from Henry Garrido. As the Medicare Advantage fight clearly demonstrated previously, he is exactly the kind of guy who is more than happy to go scorched earth against anyone attempting to advance pro-worker legislation he doesn’t like.
“We are what we believe,” Garrido told supporters outside City Hall on May 20.
Henry was right about that. And as Maya Angelou famously observed, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”