“No More 24” Bill Stalls: Menin, Mamdani Mocked at City Hall Protest

And again, a hunger strike protest by women home health workers decrying the 24-hour workday is over. Ending on its eight day, this one, like the prior one, was peopled mostly by Chinese women and had its rough encampment on Broadway, just north of the entry gate to City Hall. The location was well-chosen, for it couldn’t be missed by politicians and their staff who labor at City Hall, though not missing the protestors and supporting them legislatively are very different propositions.

To highlight this discrepancy, more than 200 vociferous backers of Council Member Christopher Marte’s “No More 24” legislation came out at noon on Wednesday Aug. 5 to reiterate their outrage as the bill continues to face headwinds from various parties in government, labor and the health care industry. Though the hunger strike was ending, it was announced, the protests would resume in September. Rally speakers hailed variously their cause in English, Mandarin and Spanish.

The reasons for such widespread resistance to what, on the surface, seems like a slam-dunk labor and civil rights issue are complex, and perhaps intractable: thus both Democrats and Democratic Socialists are facing protestors’ ire.

The activists’ part— led by the Ain’t I Woman Campaign, which has its office at 345 Grand Street, is important to recognize, as it explains both the movement’s successes and its limits. For all their many protests, witty social media posts and on-site provocations, “No More 24” isn’t, at present, happening legislatively, nor does it appear that it will happen anytime soon.

At present, the most vilified person in the “No More 24” movement is Council Speaker Julie Menin. This follows the previous excoriation of Governor Kathy Hochul (which is still ongoing) and former Speaker Adrienne Adams, who least anyone forget is currently Hochul’s running mate for the office of New York Lieutenant Governor.

“Julie Menin First Move as Speaker is Violence Against Women” read one protest sign. “Julie The Coward! Menin The Liar! Wants Women of Color to Work 24-Hour Workdays!” shouted another.

The hunger strike outside City Hall was preceded in July by a two-week long sit-in outside Menin’s home on East End Avenue in Yorkville. This sit-in followed a prior City Hall hunger strike in April, which was called when it became evident that “No More 24” wasn’t faring better under Menin—and Mayor Zohran Mamdani—than it had under Speaker Adrienne Adams and Mayor Eric Adams.

This past winter, things seemed more optimistic. On a rainy Ash Wednesday of Feb. 18, Marte was joined by New York State Senators Jessica Ramos and Ron Kim, both of Queens, to announce the latest turn in the “No More 24” saga. Its formal name was Int. 303-2026—a follow-up to a bill introduced in 2022 by Marte as Int. 175, titled “Maximum working hours for home care aides.” It was believed then that the Menin was open to advancing the bill— now modifed to read “Maximum working hours for home care employees” — and move it from the Committee on Civil Service Labor to a full council vote.

Of Int. 303’s twelve City Council co-sponsors, three were from Manhattan: Harvey Epstein, Shaun Abreu and Yusef Salaam. All are Democrats save DSA member Chi Ossé of Brooklyn.

It’s Déjà Vu All Over Again

Why would intelligent politicians like Julie Menin and Adrienne Adams have courted excoriation by denying “No More 24” a full council hearing? For her part, Adams appears to have believed that the issue and its ramifications isn’t one the City Council should unilaterally confront. She’s not alone in this.

A recent op-ed piece in City & State, co-authored by Council Member Gale Brewer and Judith Goldiner of the Legal Aid Society lays out some of these arguments under the headline “A Well-intentioned Bill Could Collapse NYC’s home care system.” If that sounds alarmist, the authors’ closing line is a gut punch:

“New Yorkers deserve better than false choices and unfunded mandates. We can and must build a home care system that protects workers from exploitation while preserving the dignity, independence and stability of those who rely on care to live in their communities.”

Callous as these words may seem when one hears Marte—whose own mother was a home health aide who spents days away from home when he was a child—or various Chinese women speak of how their own health was wracked by years of sucessive 24-hour shifts, under current state law, there doesn’t seem to be an alternative.

While New York City can and set various local work regulations, home health care is administered by and paid for by New York State medicaid, which has its own rules for dealing with home health care agencies and the unions that represent health care workers, etc.

However well intended, the argument continues, the City Council can’t snap its legislative fingers and fix anything. The gesture may be important—and the “No More 24” movement has made gains in a longstanding wage-theft dispute with the state—but as a “solution,” it’s largely performative.

This question of authority has further put “No More 24” activists at odds with a parties considered liberal or progressive. The Legal Aid Society is against it. The big unions that cover home care workers, SEIU1199 and DC37 are against it. A State assemblymember named Zohran Mamdani once spoke at a “No More 24” rally; as Mayor, he’s not backing it.

Given the broad resistance to the practicalities of “No More 24,” it’s striking to see Julie Menin scorned as a “fraud feminist” and as an agent of “white supremacy” against “women of color.” “Julie’s not like the other girls...” one speaker repeatedly intoned, using that line to mock Menin’s alleged betrayal of both her gender and the working class.

If Menin’s slowdown on Int. 303 is an example of “white supremacy,” what was it when Adrienne Adams, a Black woman, pushed Int. 175 aside? Further, for all the invocations of “women of color” at this and other “No More 24” events, one can’t overlook the total absence of Black women workers, who in fact comprise a substantial part of the home health care occupation, especially West Indian women.

At the Aug. 5 event, this reporter saw two Black people total: one a photographer in a Karl Anthony Towns Knicks t-shirt, the other a young organizer wearing headphones and a COVID mask pulled under her chin. This census isn’t to imply that the “No More 24” movement itself has race issues but until that movement is more clearly representative of the occupation as a whole, it’s unlikely to achieve the goals it’s so passionately clamoring for.