NYC Home Care Workers Are On Hunger Strike—Speaker Julie Menin Could Be the Heroine They Need
Raulina Duran and other New York City home care workers on hunger strike outside the gates of City Hall are calling on Speaker Julie Menin to be their “heroine” and bring the No More 24 bill to the floor for a vote. Photos/Joe Maniscalco
By Joe Maniscalco
Despite some of the most powerful forces in New York State arraying against them, home care workers on hunger strike this week in support of the No More 24 bill thought they were finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.
City Council Member Chris Marte’s No More 24 bill banning round-the-clock shifts at roughly half the pay in New York City’s home care industry got a hearing on Feb. 18. A subsequent floor voted was widely anticipated, and City Council Speaker Julie Menin [D-5th District] was being praised for making it all happen so early in her inaugural term.
“It shows she really cares about this population,” Council Member Marte [D-1st District] said at the time.
But home care workers—the majority of them older immigrant women of color owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases—are now on Day 3 of an open-ended hunger strike outside the gates of City Hall in support of Intro. 303—the No More 24 bill—and Speaker Menin is talking about finalizing “the best version of the legislation.”
Menin—the successor to former City Council Speaker and current candidate for Lt. Governor Adrienne Adams—enjoyed cheers from home care workers when she met with them during the second day of their City Hall sit-in on March 19 promising to bring the No More 24 bill to the floor for a vote at some point this month with no changes.
Advocates rally for passage of the No More 24 bill during the kickoff of a home care workers' hunger strike that is set to continue until the legislation is finally put to a vote.
Home care workers joyfully crowding around Speaker Menin at Murray Street and Broadway took that seemingly straight-forward declaration to mean the No More 24 bill they fought so hard to advance would finally get the democratic vote it deserves—and the City of New York would finally end what many denounce as “modern day slavery.”
The language of the bill has subsequently undergone unspecified changes with no less of a figure than Mayor Zohran Mamdai floating the idea of making the mandatory round-the-clock shifts “voluntary” and Governor Kathy Hochul using all her political power and might to kill the No More 24 bill outright.
District Council 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido, head of the largest public sector union in the city, has also thrown his considerable weight in the No More 24 campaign’s path, and the Legal Aid Society is arguing that if passed the bill would “leave very disabled people without care.”
Speaker Menin is feeling the pressure—and the fate of the No More 24 bill hangs in the balance.
"On March 19, Speaker Menin committed to organizers that she would continue pushing for the bill to move forward in April,” a spokesperson for Speaker Menin told Work-Bites this week. “She has been working diligently to finalize the best version of the legislation, which is complex and requires more input from stakeholders. Knowing full well how the legislative process unfolds, the Speaker wouldn't ever agree that the language of a bill would remain unchanged before passage—that’s simply not how it works.”
Marion Riedel, Grand Street Democrats at-large member, called on Speaker Menin to “come on down” and be “our heroine” before the official start of the home care workers’ hunger strike on Thursday.
“Do you think we would be standing here fighting if this was about white men? This is sexist and misogynistic.”
“Let’s be clear,” Reidel told the City Hall rally. “This is a sexist practice geared towards women who are mostly immigrants—women who are mostly women of color. Do you think we would be standing here fighting if this was about white men? This is sexist and misogynistic. It’s bad enough we have 24 hour shifts—but the women only get paid 13 hours of those 24 hours.”
A spokesperson for Council Member Marte told Work-Bites this week that he is “disappointed to see that there is external involvement” in trying to suppress a democratic vote on the No More 24 bill.
“We should be able to legislate without outside influence,” the spokesperson said.
During last month’s home care worker sit-in at City Hall Council Member Marte said his office is happy to discuss the No More 24 bill with colleagues or people in the industry—but that “our fundamental line in the sand is to make sure we end the 24-hour practice.”
The New York City Council as currently comprised has been roundly celebrated for its historic diversity and being women-led. Intro. 303—the bill seeking to finally end the obscene practice of subjecting older women of color to institutionalized wage theft and round-the-clock shifts in New York City’s home care industry—still has just 17 co-sponsors.
Elderly home care workers pushing for passage of the No More 24 bill are seen here outside the gates of City Hall on Day 1 of their ongoing hunger strike.
“There is no job in this city that should require 24-hour shifts,” City Council Member Julie Won [D-26th District] told hunger strikers and their supporters on Thursday. “And shame on anyone who continues to take exploitative advantage of all of our aunties, [and all] of sisters.”
Lincoln Restler, fellow Intro. 303 signatory and City Council Member representing Brooklyn’s 33rd District, said he signed onto the bill requiring split shifts in the New York City’s home care industry four years ago, and he’s been pressured from “all kinds of folks, from all quarters” ever since—but that he’s refused to take his name off the bill.
“Some things are just simple,” he said on Thursday. “Nobody should have to work 24 hours in a row.”
On April 10, home care workers and their advocates sent an open letter to Speaker Menin expressing their disappointment that she has not submitted Intro. 303 for a vote on the floor of the New York City Council.
“You continue to allow the home care agencies and insurance companies to use the 24-hour workday to torture us women of color,” they wrote. “You did not honor your own promise to us, and told City Council Member Marte that Governor Hochul threatened to withhold city funding if you pass the bill.”
On Friday, home care workers continuing the hunger strike into its second day chanted, “Call 2-1-2 7-8-8 7-2-1-OH” (Menin’s office).
Sarah Ahn, an organizer with the Ain’t I a Woman Campaign supporting home care workers, expressed frustration with ongoing efforts to further suppress a vote on the No More 24 bill.
“The Speaker promised no change to the bill to home care workers—some of who are now on hunger strike,” Ahn said when reached for further comment this week. “Stop playing with women's lives.”