Home healthcare workers who have been fighting to ban the 24-hour workday and ensure 24-hour care is spread between two workers not just one, will go on a hunger strike at noon on Wed., March 20.
The hunger strikers will make their stand on the west side of City Hall Park in front of the City Hall gates at Broadway and Murray Street.
The workers have support from city councilmembers and have held six large rallies outside City Hall to call on Speaker Adrienne Adams to bring the bill to a vote, which so far has not happened.
“Taking this step is not something we initially had wanted,” said Candy Song, one of the home-care attendants. “Everyone knows that a hunger strike is very harmful. But we are forced to take this action by today’s violent and racist system. Nearly a decade of protests, marches and demonstrations didn’t seem to suffice to pass the bill to abolish the 24-hour workday. With our determination, we aim to awaken people from all walks of life to let everyone know that such inhumanity, violence against women, still exists in a democratic country, especially in New York City.”
The argument used against the home-care workers is that they can sleep during part of the 24-hour shift. However, the workers say they often need to get up during the night to help the patients, so not able to really rest.
The strike is scheduled to occur during Women’s History Month to highlight the hypocrisy of celebrating progress toward women’s liberation, when, even now, women of color and immigrant women currently suffer the longest possible work hours.
The action is being organized by the Ain’t I a Woman?! campaign.
The protesters noted that, “Particularly when the New York City Council celebrates the historic women-majority City Council led by a woman of color, it is imperative to end the violence of 24-hour workdays that women of color suffer only in New York City.”
It’s called wage slavery. Also lumpen proletariat. Workers arise. We have nothing to lose except our chains.