Cold-Blooded Mamdani: NYC Seeks to Dismantle Hunger Strikers’ Shelter
The City of New York, under the leadership of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new administration, tried unsuccessfully this week to force home care workers on hunger strike to dismantle their tent outside the gates of City Hall. Photos/Joe Maniscalco
By Joe Maniscalco
New York City law enforcement agents on Tuesday reportedly tried unsuccessfully to strip elderly home care workers of the makeshift tent they’re using to help withstand unseasonably frigid temperatures and rain during their ongoing hunger strike outside the gates of City Hall.
A citywide Code Blue weather alert was in effect on April 21 when City Hall security and Parks Department enforcement agents approached the elderly hunger strikers and their advocates and told them they had to dismantle the makeshift tent erected at the corner of Broadway and Murray Street.
“[Mayor Mamdani] is not human,” 62-year-old retired home care worker Xue Zhen Chen told Work-Bites through an interpreter on Tuesday. “We have not eaten in six days, and he has not even come out and cared about us. Instead, he said we cannot even put up the tarps to shield our fragile bodies from the wind and the cold. Who does that? This is inhumane and the opposite of what the leader of New York City should be.”
The City of New York issues Code Blue weather alerts when temperatures combined with the wind chill factor fall below 32 degrees. The action forces the Department of Homeless Services to increase outreach efforts and guarantees shelter to anyone seeking refuge from the cold between the hours of 4 p.m. and 8 a.m.
It still felt like 44 degrees on Tuesday afternoon when Work-Bites visited the hunger strikers continuing to push for passage of the “No More 24” bill and an end to mandatory round-the-clock shifts in New York City’s home care industry that activists denounce as institutionalized violence against women.
City Council Member Christopher Marte’s “No More 24” bill received a City Council hearing in February, but has yet to be brought to the floor for a full vote as City Council Speaker Julie Menin has pledged to do.
Home care workers and their advocates were forced during a Code Blue cold weather alert on April 21 to relocate this tent sheltering hunger strikers at Broadway and Murray Street.
In 2024, then mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani told home care workers and their advocates rallying outside the Labor Department’s Brooklyn offices on Hanson Place that the practice—also often equated to “modern day slavery” and mandating home care workers work 24-hour shifts while only getting paid for 13 of those hours—must finally end.
“We know that those technical breakups of thirteen hours and eleven hours for so many workers [assigned 24-hour shifts] mean nothing—that you are working every single hour of that shift—and that must come to an end,” he said.
Hizzoner, along with Governor Kathy Hochul, District Council 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido, and the Legal Aid Society, are all arrayed against the “No More 24” bill to at least some degree—while 1199 SEIU has conditioned its support of legislation that “does not place unfair limitations on workers’ hard won right to earn overtime and includes full Medicaid funding for the additional hours to prevent consumers from being forced into nursing homes and subsequent job losses for their dedicated caregivers.”
Intro. 303—the “No More 24” bill still has just 17 cosponsors in the widely touted women-led and demographically diverse New York City Council.
Chen said she retired in February after spending a full decade working round-the-clock shifts at roughly half the pay. The Labor Department has determined that there are individual cases where at least some home care workers are owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid wages.
Then mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani denounced the 24-hour workday in New York City’s home care industry during a rally held in Brooklyn on Dec. 11, 2024.
“Home care is a very demanding job—especially 24-hour shifts,” 72-year-old retiree Ka Lai Leong said on Tuesday. “In order to care for the patients who we really, really care about we cannot leave that patient alone. It is non-stop working.”
Home care workers and their advocates said they were ultimately forced to move their tent a few feet after City Hall authorities claimed it was blocking an active driveway.
“Everyone is mad, but also holding their ground,” home care worker advocate Sarah Ahn told Work-Bites. Ahn also said hunger strikers have a permit to be outside the gates of City Hall and will look to extend it if necessary.
Home care workers pushing for passage of the “No More 24” bill successfully maintained a similar tent outside the gates of City Hall during a previous hunger strike held two years ago while former Mayor Eric Adams was still in office.
That tent remained standing throughout the 2024 hunger strike despite ongoing opposition from both Mayor Adams and former City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams who actively worked to suppress a vote on Council Member Marte’s “No More 24” bill.
Elderly home care workers, seen here in their makeshift tent outside the gates of City Hall, are on Day 7 of their hunger strike in support of Intro. 303—the “No More 24” bill.
The makeshift tent shielding the elderly hunger strikers this time around remained unmolested when Work-Bites last checked on Wednesday.
“Eventually, we came to a compromise,” Council Member Marte told Work-Bites on Tuesday. “We cleared most of the things out of this driveway and they gave us at least an extra day with the tent. I think it’s unfortunate they want to expose workers who are on hunger strike to what was triggered last night—a Cold Blue from the city—which means it’s too cold for people to be outside. Is that what they want these workers to go through tonight?”
The Council Member, who previous ran a reform platform to succeed Adrienne Adams as Speaker, remains optimistic the “No More 24” bill will finally get a hearing and will be passed into law.
“We’re still engaging with the Speaker’s office, slowly making progress, but there is progress being made,” he said. “We’ve made some comprises.”
Some of those compromises, according to Council Member Marte, include pushing the effective date of the bill to a year out after it becomes law.
Opponents of the “No More 24” have argued that mandating split shifts in New York City’s home care industry and actually paying home care workers for every hour they work would “leave very disabled people without care.”
“Hopefully, we get to a place where we’re like, all right, enough’s enough. Let’s get this done,” Council Member Marte continued. “It’s gonna happen, it’s just when.”
Speaker Menin, who on Wednesday told amNewYork that, “Based on the revisions we’ve made to the bill, it would actually bring the cost down and not put a cost on the City of New York,” has pledged to bring the “No More 24” bill to the floor for a vote before month’s end.
Work-Bites made repeated unsuccessful efforts to reach the Mayor’s Office, for further comment on this story.
Parks Enforcement Patrol officers, meanwhile, were reportedly carrying out their regular duties patrolling City Hall Park on Tuesday when they requested to see the hunger strikers’ permit for the use of the tent, but did not instruct them to take it down or move it.
Home care workers also on Wednesday, highlighted a recent United Nations “allegation letter” reportedly sent the the U.S. Department of State condemning round-the-clock shifts in New York City’s home care industry, as well as renewing their calls on Speaker Menin to finally bring the “No More 24” bill to the floor for a vote as previously pledged.