NYC’s No More 24 Fight Goes International
New York City Council Member Chris Marte [r] rallies with home care workers outside the gates of City Hall on Jun. 25, calling on Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Speaker Julie Menin to back passage of the No More 24 bill ending round-the-clock shifts in New York City’s home care industry. Photos/Joe Maniscalco
By Joe Maniscalco
The whole world is watching New York City’s fight to end the 24-hour workday and Governor Kathy Hochul is guilty of breaking international labor laws.
That’s the message home care workers and their advocates calling on city government to finally green light Intro. 303—the No More 24 bill—brought to the gates of City Hall on Thursday, June 25.
“When our city has failed us, when our state has vailed us, when our governor has failed us, thank god for the United Nations,” Intro. 303 sponsor Chris Marte [D-1st District] told demonstrators this week. “The international governing body has said that working 24-hour shifts is a stain against humanity and a violation of human rights.”
No More 24 advocates previously brought their case to the United Nations and in April of this year, the Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, along with four other UN entities wrote a letter alerting the U.S. State Department that according to information the UN groups had gathered, “The 24-hour workday severely impacts home care workers’ health, causing a gradual and debilitating decline in physical and mental well being.”
The UN groups further stated that, “While the government has framed the purpose of the model as necessary to provide 24-hour care, the 24-hour workdays also drive older persons and persons with disabilities of quality care and support, potentially compromising their rights, well-being and safety.”
Retired home care worker Lai Yee Chan [blue shirt] and other No More 24 advocates gather outside outside City Hall on Jun. 25 with a copy of the UN letter to the U.S. State Department denouncing round-the-clock shifts.
Retired home care worker Lai Yee Chan worked round-the-clock shifts as an employee of the Chinese American Planning Council Home Attendant Program—one of the largest and most influential home care service agencies in New York City—for nearly a decade, sometimes working three to five consecutive days each week.
One of her patients was an octogenarian who was partially paralyzed, had difficulty swallowing, and was incontinent after suffering a stroke. Lai Yee said the constant care and attention the man required left her exhausted and unable to sleep.
“Even when I was at home resting I could not sleep normally,” she told No More 24 supporters on Thursday. “Whenever I heard a sound I would immediately wake up in distress thinking my patient was calling for me. The 24-hour work day is inhumane and should be ended immediately.”
That testimony, health justice and No More 24 advocate Dr. Steve Auerbach said, “absolutely meets the criteria for PTSD.”
“Shame on every worker, every union, every labor group, every progressive group—that has not stepped up to fight against the abusive 24 hour work day,” he said.
New York City home care workers are calling on City Council Speaker Julie Menin, Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and Governor Kathy Hochul to take immediate action to end round-the-clock shifts.
District District Council 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido led a union rally outside City Hall on May 20 opposing passage of Intro. 303. Local 389 President Margaret Glover, asserted at the same rally that many workers want to work round-the-clock shifts.
“We don’t complain,” she said. “We do the hours.”
A coalition of both active District Council 37 workers and retirees later penned an open letter to City Council Speaker Julie Menin urging her to submit and pass the original version of Intro. 303 mandating split 12-hour shifts.
“We know that you are under immense pressure from the insurance companies, home care agencies, and SEIU1199 & DC37,” the letter states. “We also know that Governor Hochul and Mayor Mamdani are pressuring you. We are particularly stunned by Local 389 of DC 37 asking to be exempted from the bill, essentially sanctioning brutal 24-hour workdays for its own home attendant members.”
Intro. 303 remains in limbo this week despite Speaker Menin pledging to home care workers back in March to bring Marte’s No More 24 bill to the floor for a vote the following month.
Local 389 members may not complain about working a 24-hour workday—but they’re not getting paid for it. Under New York's existing rules, employers can assign home care workers round-the-clock shifts but legally only pay them for 13 hours because workers are supposed to be sleeping or eating the rest of the time.
Dr. Steve Auerbach [white coat] stands with home care workers outside the gates of City Hall this week.
But even Mayor Mamdani knew that legal fiction allowing what amounts to institutionalized wage theft was bogus when he declared at a home care workers’ rally in Brooklyn last year that the system must 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,” the then mayoral candidate told home care workers rallying outside the Labor Department’s Hanson Place offices in December.
Garrido and other No More 24 opponents argue that passing Into. 303 and requiring split 12-hour shifts without additional funding could jeopardize patient care and force some into nursing homes.
Hochul’s office made it clear when reached for comment that there is no money in the state FY27 budget for split shifts.
During Thursday’s No More 24 rally, however, Dr. Auerbach, stressed that the very system of legalized wage theft Mayor Mamdani denounced last year already jeopardizes patient safety right now—and that’s because home care workers who take time out for uninterrupted meals or sleep breaks risk failing to provide patients with the timely care they need to prevent things like bedsores and pneumonia.
“[Patients] will die from both pneumonia and sepsis because of that legal loophole,” Dr. Auerbach said.
Work-Bites made several attempts to reach the Mayor’s Office for comment on this story, but those efforts were all unsuccessful.
A spokesperson for Governor Kathy Hochul issued a statement saying that she has made “unprecedented investments in home care wages, increasing the minimum wage for home care aides, and securing $13 billion for home wage increases since 2023.”
And despite opposing a New York State Supreme Court order in January to reopen hundreds of wage claims, Hochul’s office said she is “committed to ensuring our workers receive any wages they are owed.”
Lai Yee said home care workers are “very happy that the United Nations has heard our calls to end the 24-hour work day, and has publicly stated that the US government’s encouragement and maintenance of the 24 hour shifts violates human rights.”
No More 24 advocates and their allies pledge to return to City Hall next week and continue agitating for passage of Intro. 303 if Speaker Menin and Mayor Mamdani fail to take immediate action.
“No one should be tweeting, no one should be saying that they're on the right side of history if they're fighting against this movement, if they're fighting against these workers,” Council Member Marte said.