Home Care Workers Announce Plan to Hunger Strike Against the 24-hour Workday and Speaker Adams’ Support of Violence Against Women of Color in NYC

Spectrum News Coverage

On Wednesday, January 24, home care workers and workers of all backgrounds convened at City Hall to demand that Speaker Adams stop supporting the 24-hour workday. Protesters condemned the fact Speaker Adams is starting her second term at the head of a woman-majority City Council with a legacy of actively supporting violence against women of color. 

Monthly protests in front of City hall began in 2023, but Speaker Adams refused to allow City Council members to vote on the No More 24 Act (Intro 0175-A) that would end the 24-hour workday in New York City. Instead of supporting an end to this shameful and abusive practice, Speaker Adams has forced home attendants, mostly women of color and immigrants, to work without rest, for days on end, to the detriment of workers and patients’ health. 

Home care workers announced the hunger strike saying: “How in the 21st century are workers being forced to work these inhumane hours. We must all join together to end the violence of 24-hour workdays that destroy lives.”

NMASS member Marina Acosta spoke at the January 24 protest. “I worked 24 hour shifts. My mom also works 24 hour shifts 11 years of 4, 5 sometimes 7 days a week. She was never able to sleep through the night. Those years of 24-hour shifts had many consequences for her health and for our family. They had to operate on her spine and both of her arms. Sometimes she couldn’t see me, her daughter – only once a month. Now, I care for my mother because the 24-hour shifts have destroyed her health. How many more women like me, like my mother, will suffer 24-hour shifts? Shame on Speaker Adams for allowing this violence against women of color. This violence must end! That’s why we have to call a hunger strike. No more 24!”

Why, in the 21st century in New York, does this inhumane crime of 24-hour work shifts still exist? In 2023, as home care workers, we came to the city government to express our grievances, FIVE TIMES! Urging Speaker Adrienne Adams to pass the No More 24 Act multiple times. However, the Speaker ignored our pleas, refusing to meet with us. As the first majority-female City Council Speaker in New York’s history, you are causing countless women in New York to suffer – families are breaking apart, lives are being ruined!

We, representing all home care sisters, make this appeal: In 2024, the violence of 24-hour work shifts must come to an end! We have decided that if the bill is not brought to a vote, we will come back in March to protest through a hunger strike! We hope friends in the media and colleagues from all walks of life will support us! Thank you, everyone!”