Home healthcare aides threaten daily sit-in outside City Hall

Hundreds of protestors gathered outside City Hall on March 8 to call for better working conditions for home health aides and the passage of the “No More 24” act, which would set limits on the hours employers can require them to work. Organizers said that if the legislation isn’t passed within a week, they are prepared to stage daily sit-ins at City Hall beginning March 18. 

The rally was organized on International Working Women’s Day by the Coalition to Fight for Our Health and Lives, an intentional move to call attention to the continued plight of women workers on a day intended to honor them. As previously reported by The Chief, there are about 300,000 home-care workers in New York City, and the majority of them are immigrant women.

Home health aides who spoke at the rally said that they are routinely forced to work 24-hour shifts and aren’t able to take state mandated 11 hours of break time to sleep and eat, as even overnight patient care can be intensive. They said this has left them working grueling shifts and only being paid for about half the hours they work. 

Home-care worker Ah-Lin Lok, speaking through a translator, said that because those who need 24-hour care have serious conditions, uninterrupted sleep is not an option. 

“We had to keep an eye on the patient the whole time, especially at night. If anything happened, we had to call 911,” she said. “Also at night I had to change the diaper almost every hour or take the patient to the bathroom.” 

Shifts impact health

Lok said her years in the role have permanently impacted her physically and mentally, left her unable to sleep normally, and strained her relationship with her family. 

“Even though I no longer have 24 hours,” Lok said. “I still suddenly wake up at night thinking that, ‘oh, I have to go to work, I have to check on the patients.’”

As her kids were growing up, she said she was never able to attend parent meetings at their schools because of the demands of her job.

“My kids' relatives had to go, so the teacher never saw me,” Lok said. 

Maria Rodriguez, who has been working as a home-care worker for more than 20 years described similar impacts on her health. 

Rodriguez told The Chief through a translator that she’s developed high blood pressure and insomnia and that her sleep more broadly has been changed forever because of the stress of the job.

Intro. 303, introduced Jan. 29 by Council Member Christopher Marte, would split 24-hour shifts into two 12-hour or three eight-hour shifts, and set other limits on the amount employers can require them to work in a week. 

'Damage is already done'

For Marte, the issue is deeply personal.

“My mom was a home attendant so I personally know the physical and mental abuse and damage that this causes, not only to these workers but to their families,” he said. “Some of them leave for work and don't come back for three or four days."

Casey Robinson, an organizer of the rally, said that former City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams was “hell-bent” on not letting a previous version of the bill, which Marte first introduced in 2022, reach the floor for a vote. Robinson said she hopes that Speaker Menin will not put up similar roadblocks.

A spokesperson for Menin did not respond to a request for comment.

In a speech at the rally, Nu Jun Zhu, another home care worker, described the 24-hour workday as the “chronic murdering of hundreds of women.”

Lok said that this isn’t an exaggeration – she said she has personally known many women who the demanding job has driven to their grave.

Lok said that for her, the “damage is already done.”

She’s fighting for the people who will come after her.  “I don't want to see the other workers and the future generations go through the same thing as we do,” Lok said.