By Joe Maniscalco

This is gonna be the year the New York City Council finally steps up, passes the “No More 24” bill, and ends the round-the-clock workdays steadily grinding home health aides — predominantly older women of color — down to the bone right before everyone’s eyes.

If not, home health aides vow to go on a hunger strike to make it happen.

The only thing standing in the way of the “No More 24” bill’’s passage, proponents insist, is a health insurance industry monster unwilling to change its greedy ways in New York, and the career politicians who continue to cower beneath its slobbering, jag-toothed, avarice.

“It only happens here in New York City,” Council Member Christopher Marte [D-1st District] told Work-Bites earlier this week. “You know, it doesn't happen in Buffalo…it isn't happening in Rochester. We can change how many hours someone stays at their job — and that's what we're doing.”

Council Member Marte, the Lower East Side bodega-owner and garment factory worker’s son who won election in 2021, is the bill’s lead sponsor and most ardent champion. And despite claims from the Speaker Adrienne Adams’ office, Marte maintains the “No More 24” bill is built on a strong legal foundation.

“If this bill was not within the city’s powers, then it wouldn't have never been introduced,” he said. “It's actually part of a greater bill called the Fair Workweek Law, which stops fast food restaurant workers from working unduly long hours, and that has passed even in the courts. Chipotle, and all these other international fast food brands sued workers and tried to kill the bill — and it survived litigation. So, this bill is sound.”

More than 100 home health aides and their supporters returned to the gates of City Hall on Wednesday, Jan. 24, to continue pressing Speaker Adams to quit blocking the “No More 24” bill and let it to come to the floor for a vote.

“No More 24” proponents held vigils and rallied en masse outside City Hall on at least five separate occasions last year — each time calling on Speaker Adrienne Adams to stand up and help “stop the violence” and wage theft being perpetrated against women of color in the home health aide industry. 

The system as presently designed, not only subjects the older women of color who constitute the bulk of those working as home attendants to punishing 24-hour shifts — it also only pays them for about half those hours worked.

Intro. 175-A seeks to end that, and limit shifts to no more than 12-hours. Extra hours would still be possible in certain emergencies.

The “No More 24” bill, nevertheless continues to sit in City Council Member Carmen De La Rosa’s [D-10th District] Civil Service and Labor Committee — and while it’s well within her power as Chairperson to do so — the council member has clearly stated for the record that she will not cross Speaker Adams and let Intro. 175-A  ever see daylight.

“That's what happens, right?” Marte continued. “Like, the system is really speaker-heavy. They control what’s on the agenda; they control who are the committee chairs; and they’re able to decide what gets to move in the City Council — for better or worse.”

One by one, home health aides speaking out at Wednesday’s latest “No More 24” rally denounced the destructive toll working in the industry has had both on their physical well-being and the well-being of their  families — and wondered how, well into the 21st century, it can continue to exist.

“It’s ridiculous,” Ain’t I a Woman organizer Jihye Song told Work-Bites. “We know at least a billion dollars a year is stolen from home attendants just from not paying those 11 hours — so, that's money the insurance companies are pocketing. They could use that money to split the shifts up easily. It's really just about people who don't want insurance companies make less money.”

Despite the institutionalized obstacles, Marte is confident home health aides and the “No More 24” bill will ultimately succeed.

“I think if we continue to organize — we have the people and the workers — we can grow this to eventually get to a point where it has to pass,” he said. “Last year, no one thought [the ban on solitary confinement] was gonna pass the council; no one thought, probably, [the How Many Stops Act] would pass the council. But they did because they had enough momentum. And that's what we're looking to do — replicate [the success] of those somewhat controversial issues, and get a majority of this council to support it, and to pass it.”

Home health aides plan on further increasing the pressure on Speaker Adams by denouncing “inhuman” 24-hour workdays across the five boroughs, and continuing to agitate in the streets outside City Hall. They’ll be back at the City Hall gates in March. That’s when they vow to launch a hunger strike if Speaker Adams hasn’t changed her mind.

“You who have been breaking your backs, you who have been putting your lives on the line to take care of people — we are here to stand behind you,” Downtown Independent Democrats President Richard Corman told home health aides on Wednesday. “We will not abandon you. This is the year to end the 24-hour workday — and we’re gonna stand with you to make that happen.”

Work-Bites reached out to Speaker Adams’ office for a comment on this story, but has not gotten a response.

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