The Real Reason Why Democrats are Losing Ground—Failing the Working Class Just Like This!
Home care attendants display letters to New York State Governor Kathy Hochul and the DOL demanding they “do the right thing,” end mandatory 24-hour shifts and recover their stolen wages. Photos/Joe Maniscalco
By Joe Maniscalco
“This is why.”
Advocates for home care workers in New York are holding up the ongoing failure to end slavish 24-hour shifts, coupled with the state Department of Labor’s sudden decision to scrap a widespread probe into wage theft as prime examples of why Democrats and progressives are losing ground to Republicans and the right wing.
“When Democrats and progressives are losing ground, this is why,” New York State Assembly Member Ron Kim [D-40th District] told the more than one hundred home attendants who shut down the street outside DOL offices in Downtown Brooklyn this past week. “This is a simple, simple thing. Six billion dollars in twelve years—that’s what they owe you. And you wonder why there’s no upward mobility; you wonder why there’s no social mobility—this is why.”
New York State Supreme Court Judge Gerald W. Connolly, in October, annulled the DOL’s earlier decision to abruptly cancel its investigations into wage theft involving home care attendants who worked round-the-clock shifts but only got paid for 13 hours.
New York State Assembly Member Ron Kim.
The mostly older Asian women of color who continue to be subjected to mandatory 24-hour shifts in New York while only getting paid for roughly half the time, insist they are individually owed hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars after more than a decade of stolen wages.
And they’re still waiting.
“We are writing to demand the Governor and the Department of Labor comply with the court’s ruling immediately, publish the investigation results, and recover our stolen wages,” home care workers employed by the Chinese-American Planning Council [CPC] said in a letter to New York Governor Kathy Hochul.
Those same home care attendants accuse the CPC—touted as the largest Asian-American social services organization in the country—with also being “the biggest wage thief” in the industry. And they are further outraged that Governor Hochul earlier this year decided to award the organization a multi-billion-dollar contract to administer a program in New York City which allows Medicaid recipients to hire relatives or loved ones as home care attendants.
New York City Council Member Christopher Marte.
“I am here to say that I am embarrassed and angry at a Democratic administration that has closed investigations into wage theft,” Democratic District Leader and Downtown Independent Democrats member Vittoria Fariello told home care attendants rallying in Brooklyn on Wednesday, December 11. “This is unacceptable.”
Home care attendant advocates in August also charged former CPC Council Board Chair Jenny Low with exerting “undue influence on the NYSDOL’S decisions” while serving as Governor Hochul’s Chief of Constituency Affairs. That influence, they further charged, ultimately led to the “cessation of investigations into workers’ cases without charges.”
Governor Hochul hired Low to work in the Executive Chamber in November 2022. Low continued in that role until January of this year. She had also perviously served as a special advisor to New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams [D-28th District]—the chief person responsible for squashing City Council legislation aimed at abolishing 24-hour shifts for home care workers.
Grand Street Dems at-large member Marion Riedel [l] and Democratic District Leader Vittoria Fariello [r].
New York City Council Member Chris Marte [D-1st District], sponsor of local legislation aimed at ending 24-hour shifts for home care attendants, invoked the legacy of Shirley Chisholm outside the government building that bears her name at 55 Hanson Place.
“She was unbought and unbossed,” Council Member Marte said. “Well, it seems like these home care agencies are buying the DOL and they’re being bossed by Kathy Hochul. Even worse, our governor is choosing to give more money to agencies like CPC who have a long history of wage theft.”
You would think, the 35-year-old first-term legislator continued, that at a time when Democrats and progressives are supposed to be standing up for workers’ rights and working class families there would be penalties and some guilty parties would be going to jail.
“However, this administration is giving them more money, more responsibilities, and putting some of the most vulnerable people in their jurisdiction. This is wrong,” Marte said.
Home care attendants shut down the street outside the NYSDOL’s offices at 55 Hanson Place in Brooklyn.
Advocates for home care attendant read a letter from New York State Senator Cordell Cleare [D-30th District], Chair of the Committee on Aging, saying that not only should they be paid a living wage with extraordinary benefits, “all instances of wage theft should be prosecuted to the absolute extent of the law until each individual is made completely whole.”
Democratic Assembly Member Emily Gallagher [District 50] also submitted a letter of support for home attendants saying the DOL “must enforce the law” and “investigate their wage theft claims and pursue their stolen wages.”
The CPC insists it fully supports home care workers in their call to finally end 24-hour shifts and instead make two 12-hour split shifts universal—but claims “24-hour shifts are mandated by state law and determined by insurance companies.”
“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,” New York State Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani [D-36th Distrct], told protesters in Brooklyn.
Cross-Union Retirees Organizing Committee member Evie Jones-Rich promises home care attendants they have the numbers and the will to finally end mandatory 24-hour shifts and recover stolen wages.
The New York State Department of Labor, meanwhile, steadfastly refuses to weigh in on the plight of home care attendants, citing a policy of not commenting on active litigation.
Work-Bites wanted to know what DOL Commissioner Roberta Reardon thinks of the 24-hour shifts home care attendants are still being forced to work, as well as the fundamental injustices baked into the ongoing practice costing Democrats and progressives politically. But we were given the same answer.
Attempts to reach Governor Kathy Hochul’s office for comment were also unsuccessful.
“I want you for a minute to think about the other side of this,” Marion Riedel, Grand Street Dems at-large member, told home attendants rallying in Brooklyn. “Your partner, your mother, you, [or] your grandmother are in the bed needing the care. [And] the person who’s there to care for them has been working for eighteen hours, nineteen hours…doesn’t have enough money because they’re not paid for all the time they worked to really take care of themselves. They’ve got to turn that person; they’ve got to get them up and go to the bathroom; they’ve got to make sure no crisis happens that’s gonna put their lives at risk. We want the people who are being cared for to be okay—and that’s only going to happen if the caregivers are okay.”
Assembly Member Kim resolved to help home attendants finally recover the money that’s owed to them.
“They want you to stay quiet,” he said. “They want you to go away. But we’re getting organized, we’re getting bigger. We’re gonna push back, we’re gonna fight back—we’re gonna win every dollar that is owed to you.”
Ninety-one-year-old activist Evie Jones-Rich certainly refuses to be quiet.
“We have the numbers and we have right on our side,” she said. “And ladies and gentlemen, we will triumph!”