Open Letter to Speaker Julie Menin from Home Care Women Workers
Dear City Council Speaker Menin,
We are disappointed that you did not submit the Intro 303 bill by April 8, 2026. You continue to allow the home care agencies and insurance companies to use the 24-hour workday to torture us women of color. You did not honor your own promise to us, and told City Council Member Marte that Governor Hochul threatened to withhold city funding if you pass the bill. Such action clearly shows how corrupt Hochul is. We hope you maintain your independence and principles, stand up against injustice, and will not bow to pressure from either Governor Hochul or Mayor Mamdani. As you know, those who said you need to come up with more money in order to abolish the 24-hour workday is essentially saying: if you don’t pay the kidnappers, they will continue to torture their hostages. Ending the 24-hr workday will not add burden to the city budget, as it is not about money, but about the life and death of workers and the patients who need quality care. We hope you do not become the henchman of Hochul or Mamdani.
If you do not age the bill before April 16th, we the home care workers will be forced to launch a hunger strike on that day against you and those you represent or you bow to until the bill is aged.
Sincerely,
Home Care Women Workers Sitting In At City Hall
Hear from Radio Host Mimi Rosenberg:
A VOICE FROM THE WORKERS — YEARS OF ENDURANCE, BLOOD, SWEAT & TEARS
For four winters and many years before that—they have stood outside City Hall […]THE CORE LIE — “THERE IS NO MONEY”
NO EXCUSE TO WAIT — THE MONEY IS THERE, IT’S BEING MISDIRECTED
The resistance to ending 24-hour shifts—“No More 24”—is not driven by patient need, but by the financial structure of Medicaid managed care and the insurance companies that control it. Companies such as UnitedHealthcare, Centene Corporation, Elevance Health. In New York Healthfirst, Fidelis Care, and VNS Health for example, receive fixed public Medicaid payments to manage care—and protect their margins by suppressing labor costs.
The 24-hour shift is central to that model: one worker, often paid for just 13 hours, covering an entire day. Ending it requires proper staffing and full pay—which is why it is resisted. But the real choice is not between humane working conditions and patient care. It is whether we continue to prioritize insurer margins, or restructure public funding so care remains at home—safely and with dignity.
Open Letter From Lawyers for the Public Interest in Support of the No More 24 Act
The health of thousands of workers has been destroyed by the brutal working conditions associated with 24-hour shifts. The Medicaid patients they care for receive substandard care when aides are sleep-deprived from working 24-hour shifts. With little time to rest and recover from these grueling hours, many aides then suffer debilitating injuries themselves.
Testimony from a Disabled Young Worker Responding to the Legal Aid Society’s Defense of Insurance Companies Interests
As a disabled person I found Legal Aid’s opposition to Intro 303 appalling. They are selling out both workers and disabled people in favor of the profits of insurance companies. Intro 303 would split 24 hour care into two 12 hour shifts, providing care with greater dignity for disabled people, since a single worker cannot provide effective care in the abusive conditions of the 24 workday. Legal Aid only understands disability through insurance companies, who make decisions about what disabled people need and deserve through legal categories disconnected from life…
Testimony of Dr. Steve Auerbach from Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP)
Both the NY Doctors Coalition/Health Justice for New York and PNHP NY Metro have endorsed the No More 24 campaign for years. We are the groups who provided the medical support for the
hunger strikers who put their bodies on the line before.[…] It is absurd and obscene that an employer is allowed to control where an employed person’s body is located for a 24 hour shift but then only pays for 13 hours. It is claimed that these shifts are made acceptable due to the court ostensibly mandating that three hours are for meal breaks and eight hours designated to rest — five of which should be for “uninterrupted sleep.” To be polite, this is bullshit. In reality all these patients require continuous attention or care. That is the entire reason a caregiver needs to be there continuously over a 24 hour day. It is why everywhere else the standard of care is for two caregivers working 12 hours, or 3 caregivers to work 8 hours.
This policy has been made possible only by lots of secret behind closed doors deals; and the related privatization of public insurance like Medicaid and Medicare and the proliferation of for-profit healthcare delivery has made this worse. Ultimately the solution is also the New York Health Act, which makes all payment and the payment system publicly transparently determined.