By Joe Maniscalco

New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams [D-28th District] is crying foul this week after angry calls for her resignation erupted at a May Day rally outside City Hall on Monday in support of exploited home care attendants across the five boroughs.

Adams was roundly jeered at the May Day rally as the “face and main perpetrator of the crime” by home attendants and their advocates who, these days, view the Speaker as more of an insurance industry toady than a public servant for refusing to advance the “No More 24 Act” — a City Council measure aimed at ending 24-hour shifts and the institutionalized wage theft it allows.

“As both Health Committee Chairs of the State Legislature and countless advocates testified when this bill was first introduced, 24-hour home care shifts must be solved at the state level,” a City Council spokesperson told Work-Bites in an email sent after the demonstration. “The state controls Medicaid, and the regulatory and payment structures of home care flow through State Medicaid, so state legislation is the way to address these problems.”

The spokesperson further said it is “misleading and counterproductive to frame this issue as one that can be resolved at the city level, and deeply inappropriate to do so by lying about the Speaker's position and encouraging the use of personal attacks and racially problematic language. To actually deliver for home care workers, and the patients they care for, our efforts should be focused at the state level, where these changes can be implemented. It's perplexing why any government official, who knows this reality, would be acting otherwise.”

Council Member Chris Marte [D-1st District], lead sponsor of Intro. 175-A — the “No More 24 Act” — told May Day demonstrators he was “disappointed to be part of a city government that chooses to ignore women of color here in New York City.”

“We did what we had to do,” he said. “We organized, we introduced the bill, we had hundreds of people coming to a hearing and testified what they've been through. However, today, the Speaker, the City Council, doesn't let us move forward. We did a three-day sit-in and after that sit-in, these home attendants — these women to the left of you, to the right of you — asked for a meeting. And what did we get? Nothing.”

Despite Speaker Adams’ assertions to the contrary, JoAnn Lum, an organizer with the National Mobilization Against Sweat Shops [NMASS], says ending 24-hour shifts is, indeed, a city problem.

“It's a city problem, because the 24-hour workdays only exist in New York City — not in other parts of the state,” Lum told Work-Bites following the May Day rally. “We work with colleagues who organize home care workers upstate, including Buffalo, who tell us that 24-hour care up there is provided by split shifts. So, 12 hours for two people, or three workers working eight hours each — not one person doing a 24-hour shift. The city could stop it here and say it is illegal, which is what Intro. 175 would do.”

Female Democratic District Leader Victoria Fariello called it a “real shame” that New York City is “the only city in this whole state that allows 24-hour work days.”

“Let that sink in, Fariello said. “That’s shameful. New York City should be leading the state and should be leading our country. Instead, we are here because we still allow 24-hour work days.”

The Downtown Independent Democrats and Grand Street Democrats both passed resolutions last year calling for the end of 24-hour shifts.

“We’re here on May Day,” Grand Street Democrats President Marion Riedel said. “May Day celebrates the historic struggles and gains made by workers and by the labor movement. It’s celebrates the men and women who campaigned tirelessly for workers’ rights…and we made gains, such as the 40-hour work week, safe work conditions, paid time off. Here we are 132 years later, on May Day asking for some of these benefits for a whole cadre of women — predominantly women of color — that do not have these benefits.”

The overwhelmingly majority of home care attendants fighting the last seven years to stop the grossly exploitative practice of 24 hour shifts and recover stolen wages — have been older immigrant women of color.

Lum challenged Speaker Adams for accusing critics of “making racist or personal attacks on her,” saying, in fact, the system of 24-hour shifts is a “form of racist violence” against the older women of color who largely perform the duties of home attendants here New York City and suffer all the dreadful consequences that come from non-stop work.

NMASS member Yanin Pena invoked the passing of one home care attendant named Daisy Castillo who reportedly died recently after spending the last five years working 24-hour shifts, five-days-a-week.

“The lives of many women are cut short,” Lum said. “That's why we say it's a form of violence — when you're made to work every single hour of the day. The other aspect of why we say it’s racist is, who is doing 24-hour work days? It’s primarily immigrant women of color. We wonder if it would be as ubiquitous if it were a different population. But it’s women of color doing this work. And a lots of times, it’s justified by people saying, ‘Well, they’re lucky to have a job, or ‘It’s better than where they came from.’”

The situation is so dire, home care attendants and their advocates from NMASS and the Ain’t I a Woman campaign are calling on the United Nations to declare 24-hour shifts a crime against humanity.

Work-Bites reached out to the UN for comment but has not received a response.

“According to the Department of Labor calculation, the home care agency and insurance company stole $270,000 of my wages,” home care attendant Hui Lan Can said. “Yet Speaker Adams tries everything possible to stop putting Intro. 175 to a vote, helping insurance companies and home care agencies continue to suck our blood! Across the U.S., only New York City has such an exploitative system that eats us alive.”

Amazon Labor Union organizer Tristan “Lion” Dutchin said he is “tired of healthcare workers being disrespected, exploited, not being compensated enough, overworked long hours, [and] the list goes on.”

“These companies do not care,” he said. “We need unions ASAP. We want all home care workers to come home with a positive attitude knowing that they have worked a job that has made them happy, a job that is paying them good money, a job that is offering them good, top-notch benefits.”

A MOST UNPOPULAR CITY COUNCIL SPEAKER

The “No More 24 Act” isn’t the only pro-worker legislation Speaker Adams is sitting on, of course. She is also refusing to advance proposed legislation aimed at preserving the traditional Medicare benefits Mayor Eric Adams’ administration and the heads of the Municipal Labor Committee are bent on stripping from municipal retirees in favor of a profit-driven Medicare Advantage program administered by insurance industry giant Aetna.

Gloria Brandman of the Cross-Union Retirees Organizing Committee [CROC] — one of the principal groups fighting the City of New York’s ongoing campaign to strip municipal retirees of their traditional Medicare benefits and push them into Aetna’s Medicare Advantage plan — called Speaker Adams’ refusal to allow Intro. 175-A to get to the floor for a vote “disgraceful” and a “blow to democracy.”

“I’ve stood out here many times during the last few years,” the retired UFT educator told the May Day demonstrators. “We’ve marched and we’ve rallied to prevent the city from changing the healthcare coverage that we have had for decades and do not want to change — that’s 250,000 retirees that were promised this healthcare. But the city wants to change it into a privatized Medicare Advantage plan. This plan would compromise the health of many of us and we say no. But after two years of struggle and legal battles, the mayor is proceeding to implement this plan in September. Now, there is some promising legislation in the City Council that might stop this from happening — but Speaker Adams is not allowing this legislation to move forward. Does that sound familiar?”

Brandman further called 24-hour shifts “really criminal” and urged 1199SEIU — the union representing many of the city’s home care attendants — to “work harder” on their behalf. 

“The leaders of the municipal labor committee are going along with the city’s plan to change our healthcare so they can save money on the backs of retirees, and that is not right,” Brandman said. “Home attendants need their union as well, they need them to work harder to stop the oppressive conditions of their members. It is really a shame — especially today on May Day — to have to call out Mayor Adams, Speaker Adams, along with our union leadership, for taking advantage of the most vulnerable in our city — that would be the elderly municipal retirees and, of course, even more so, the home health care workers. We must, and we will, continue our struggles together.”

A spokesperson for 1199SEIU told Work-Bites New York’s home care workforce has been “underpaid and maltreated for years.”

“We urge the state legislature to properly fund home care services, so that workers are paid for every hour they are expected to remain in a client’s home, and to end the exploitative practice of 24-hour shifts,” the spokesperson said via email.

The union added that it urges “all parties to ensure that resources are available to do so while preserving the vital services that enable clients to live independently in the community.”

Home attendant Zu Fen Yang told May Day demonstrators she worked 24-hour shifts for more than seven years, but was only paid for 13 hours out of every 24-hour shift she worked. 

“Where are the 11 hours of wages?” she said. “The U.S. prides itself on human rights, freedom and democracy. But where are our human rights? It’s obvious that 24-hour workdays are wrong. Speaker Adams, is it so difficult for you to correct it? So difficult to put Intro. 175 to a vote? You are looking down and discriminating against us women! How many more families are you going to destroy? How much more women’s health are you going to destroy?”