Home Care Workers Launch Hunger Strike as 24-Hour Work Shifts Persist

Yves here. As many of you know, I hired home care workers, also known as home health aides even though most did not have any medical or nursing certifications, to take care of my handicapped mother. Even with my being in the house nearly all the time (some of that sleeping; I was working nights) and in the room with her and the aides for large parts of the time, it never would have occurred to me to have one aide on for 13 hours, let alone 24  (I did have 13 hour coverage over 2 shifts), let alone pay for 13 hours and have them on premises and largely working for 24 hours. Aside from clearly being over-taxing to the aide, it also seemed likely to result in adverse selection, that only the most desperate would work under these conditions. It says a great deal about how we value this sort of work that New York state law regularizes this abuse.

By Claudia Irizarry Aponte and Lilly Sabella. Originally published at THE CITY

For more than a decade, live-in home care workers have sought to end state rules that allow 24-hour home care workers to be paid for only 13 hours a day. The 24-hour shifts are permitted as long as workers are allotted three hours for meals breaks and at least five hours of sleep without interruption.

Workers say they routinely work in the same home up to 96 straight hours without rest — while getting paid for only a fraction of that time.

Outside City Hall, where workers have been protesting for nearly a month, home health aide Yunfang Zhang, 70, said through an interpreter she is joining the hunger strike because “home care workers cannot wait any longer, and our health has been destroyed.”

“We cannot allow this to continue to the next generation,” she said.

The battle over 24-hour shifts has scrambled a field of otherwise natural allies, pitting workers’ rights activists against advocates for disabled New Yorkers who rely on home care and, reportedly, Gov. Kathy Hochul against Council Speaker Julie Menin over questions of funding.

The stalled bill, introduced by Councilmember Christopher Marte of Chinatown, seeks to replace the 24-hour shifts with 12-hour shifts performed by two different workers. But disability advocates and even some worker allies, including the city’s worker protection agency, say the effort must be supported with additional state funding or it risks leaving vulnerable patients without care and workers without jobs.

Workers say they have been pushed to take the desperate step of undertaking a hunger strike.

About 40 workers holding “Stop the 24 Hr Workday” signs sat on folding chairs beside the gates of City Hall in 85-degree weather. Fifteen of them began the hunger strike at 1:00 p.m. A previous hunger strike by about two dozen home care workers in 2024 ended after six days.

Opponents argue the bill does not address how the proposed split shifts will be funded. Home care is heavily subsidized by state Medicaid dollars, which the city has no control over.

Though Zohran Mamdani said on the campaign trail that he supported ending the 24-hour shifts, his mayoral administration has pushed back on Marte’s bill over questions of how it will be funded.

Asked about Marte’s bill last week, the mayor told THE CITY he’s “long been supportive of any effort to recognize the immense labor of home care workers,” and would let the legislative process play out.

Marte said he’s “optimistic” that he, Menin, Hochul, and other stakeholders will soon nail down a deal.

“We’re continuing to organize and to push to hopefully get it up to a vote,” the next time lawmakers gather to pass legislation, said Marte. A bill he introduced in 2023 also failed to advance.

Last month, more than a dozen disability rights advocates and legal organizations sent a letter to Mamdani and Menin opposing Marte’s bill, saying it would “create a home care crisis that would leave thousands of New Yorkers without the services they need and would force them into hospitals, nursing institutions or shelters.”

Jose Hernandez, 45, who has no mobility of his legs due to a childhood spinal injury, told THE CITY in a phone interview he supports the workers’ struggle to be fully compensated. But he’s concerned that without adequate funding, efforts to grant them relief will leave vulnerable patients behind.

Hernandez, of the South Bronx, said living in a nursing home — the only recourse for disabled clients who lose their home health care — would be a “fate worse than death” that advocates and the disability community have fought for many years.

“You’re imprisoned in a nursing home for no reason but being disabled and needing help,” he said. “Like, I would lose everything: I would lose my apartment. I would lose every single possession, except the clothes that I have. I would lose my freedom, because I’m not able to get in and out freely in a nursing home. I would lose my employment.

“I would lose everything — it’s no different than a prisoner going into Rikers Island,” he said.

Estimates from 1199 SEIU, the leading union representing home care workers statewide, say that split shifts would cost an estimated $450 million annually in the five boroughs alone. Gov. Hochul warned Menin she won’t pick up the tab, Documented reported.

Menin told reporters on Thursday that lawmakers are going back to the drawing board after talks with “a variety of stakeholders.”

“We look forward to sharing a new version of the bill with the governor’s office,” the speaker added.

Home care programs are administered by organizations that receive state funding through Medicaid, over which the City Council has no control. State lawmakers have long opposed similar statewide proposals to split up 24-hour shifts over concerns that, without additional funding, expanded worker protections could cause nonprofit agencies to risk insolvency, cost workers their jobs — and leave vulnerable patients without needed care.

At a Feb. 18 hearing, a representative from the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection said the agency supported the intent of Marte’s bill while expressing concerns that it could have unintended consequences for patients and workers.

Disability advocates have accused Marte of freezing them out of discussions about the bill. They say that, as currently written, it would increase costs for patients and could force them into nursing homes.

In an interview with THE CITY last month, Marte dismissed concerns about state funding for the bill and the estimated $450 million price tag was “fear mongering.”

Disability advocates and patients who spoke with THE CITY said they had no idea Marte had reintroduced the bill this year until a month after the Feb. 18 hearing.

Marte called those assertions a “false narrative” aimed at  his credibility and the credibility of the home care workers. He said he has an “open door policy” and that his hearing was heavily promoted on social media ahead of time.

“I’ve spoken to every kind of stakeholder, even the ones who disagree with our bill,” he said. “I actually think that this bill is going to improve their care.”

The issue has led to profound rifts between patient and worker advocates, to the frustration of some leaders on both sides.

Sharon McLennon Wier, executive director of the Center for Independence of the Disabled New York, said her organization does “not oppose the fact that home health aides should be paid — we support that each and every hour of their work should be paid for.”

But she underscored concerns that without adequate funding, patients may end up back in nursing homes or institutions, harming their own independence and freedom and home health aides’ job prospects.

Katie Honan contributed reporting.