P.O.’ed At Speaker Menin: ‘All I See is Her Making An Empty Promise to Home Care Workers’
New York City home care workers advocating for an end to mandatory round-the-clock shifts at roughy half the pay are on Day 5 of their hunger strike in support of the “No More 24” bill. Photos Joe Maniscalco
By Joe Maniscalco
The March 19 photograph of home care workers cheering New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin on the sidewalk as she promises to bring the “No More 24 bill” to the floor for a vote this month features prominently outside the gates of City Hall where the workers are now on the fifth day of their hunger strike.
Ivy Wang, a young public housing advocate fighting the planned demolition of the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses not far from City Hall, pointed to the photograph prominently displayed in front of the Broadway and Murray Street subway stop on Sunday and talked about how “this picture of Julie Menin particularly pisses me off.”
“All I see is her making an empty promise to home care workers that she has so far failed to keep,” Wang said. “I feel that the promise meant nothing to her as she stares into the faces of these workers who are so often undervalued in our oppressive capitalist system, and whose struggles are too often invisible and unspoken.”
Speaker Menin appeared to have distinguished herself from her predecessor—former City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams—when in February she backed a public hearing on the “No More 24” bill and later pledged to bring it to the floor for a vote.
This photograph captures the moment in March City Council Speaker Julie Menin, seen here alongside Council Member Chris Marte, promised home care workers to bring the “No More 24” bill to the floor for a vote this month.
Adams—now on the gubernatorial re-election ticket as Kathy Hochul’s number two—had spent her entire tenure as City Council Speaker suppressing a vote on the “No More 24” bill. Sponsored by Council Member Chris Marte [D-1st District]—Intro. 303, the “No More 24” bill— seeks to end round-the-clock shifts at roughly half the pay in New York City home care industry and replace them with 12-hour split shifts at full pay.
No More 24 advocates insist what exists now amounts to nothing less than modern day slavery and institutionalized violence against the older immigrant women of color who perform most of the home care work in New York City.
“[Speaker] Menin thinks she can make a promise to these people because it means nothing and she won’t be held accountable to it,” Wang continued this weekend. “We’re not going to let her forget that she gave her word to these workers.”
Home care worker and public housing advocate Ivy Wang calls for passage of the “No More 24” bill on Day 1 of the hunger strike outside City Hall.
Menin has been under increasing establishment pressure—everyone from Governor Kathy Hochul to Mayor Zohran Mamdani—to water down or kill the “No More 24” bill ever since pledging to home care workers that it would finally get the democratic vote it deserves this month.
Its immediate future, however, is now in doubt.
A spokesperson for Menin defended the Speaker’s “No More 24” stance when Work-Bites reached out for comment last week.
"On March 19, Speaker Menin committed to organizers that she would continue pushing for the bill to move forward in April,” the spokesperson said. “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.”
Hunger striker Cai Qiong Liu speaks out during a “People’s Hearing” for the “No More 24” bill held outside the gates of City Hall on Sunday.
Assembly Member Grace Lee [D-65th District] also attended Sunday’s “people’s hearing” on the “No More 24” bill to be in solidarity with home care workers—some owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid wages—and to call on the women-led New York City Council to bring Intro. 303 to the floor for a vote and to pass it into law.
“Hunger strikers are putting their bodies on the line to make sure that home care workers in New York State have the dignity that they deserve,” the Assembly Member said. “They themselves struggle to live with dignity—and that’s not right.”
Assembly Member Lee also called for passage of statewide legislation banning employers from assigning home care workers round-the-clock shifts at roughly half the pay. A3145A—pending legislation from Assembly Member Ron Kim—seeks to do just that.
Retired UFT teacher Gloria Brandman drew parallels between the “No More 24” battle and ongoing efforts to pass Intro. 1096—another bill from Council Member Marte which seeks to stop ongoing efforts to strip New York City municipal retirees of the Traditional Medicare and MediGap health care plan they earned after decades on the job.
Former Mayor Eric Adams abandoned the scheme to strip municipal retirees of their Traditional Medicare coverage and push them into a predatory Medicare Advantage plan before being voted out of office last year—but the threat to municipal retiree health care still remains without passage of Intro. 1096.
“This is a racist and sexist system that exploits immigrant women and it is run by insurance companies—the same insurance companies that are involved in the attempt to take away retired city workers’ health care plan,” Brandman told demonstrators on April 16—Day 1 of the home care workers’ hunger strike. “We’ve been supporting Intro. 1096, which will soon be reintroduced, and which would protect retired city workers’ health insurance. With ‘No More 24’ and [Intro.] 1096 we are fighting for our health. We face the same enemies—insurance companies and some elected officials—who are supposed to protect us.”
And unlike the insurance companies who have vast resources at their disposal to successfully lobby Governor Hochul—Wang said home care workers are putting their bodies on the line as their way of “asserting their political power.”
“I thank them for their bravery because I think a lot of us feel powerless living under this system,” she said. “Like we have no choice but to fall in line to the demands of work and landlords—to accept the daily injustices of our courts and governments—just because that’s how the world works. I don’t accept that, and I’m glad to be standing out here with so many people today who refuse to accept that as well.”
Hunger striker Cai Qiong Liu said on Sunday that home care workers advocating for passage of the “No More 24” bill aren’t merely fighting for themselves.
“We are fighting for the working people, including the next generation so they don’t have to suffer the 24-hour work day,” she said. “We’re fighting to end this inhumane practice. We call on New York State Governor [Kathy] Hochul, Mayor [Zohran] Mamdani, Speaker Julie Menin—they have to come out and end this violence to women workers.”