Friday, July 31, Disability Justice for NoMore24 held a press conference outside New York City Hall, with the workers continuing Day 3 of their hunger strike.
Home attendants working 24-hour shifts file a class action lawsuit against Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC) for violations of several labor laws. Home attendants from First Chinese Presbyterian Community Affairs Home Attendant Corp., United Jewish Council, Alternate Staffing, and many other agencies begin to organize against the 24-hour workday and file their own lawsuits against their agencies.
1199SEIU, a union representing workers from 42 home care agencies, makes legal moves to force the workers’ claims in court into arbitration. The union and bosses collude to make changes to collective bargaining agreements (CBA) that retroactively force arbitration and seek to lump all the workers into an industry-wide class grievance, so union workers are stripped of their rights to go to court.
Home attendants hold a press conference with State lawmakers at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory site to announce a bill to ban 24-hour workdays in New York State. Till this day (2022), most state legislators claim to agree 24-hour workdays are inhumane but say splitting shifts into 2 twelve hour shifts will cost an additional $1 billion. In other words, women will have to continue to suffer this violence, possibly forever.
The first ongoing non-union workers’ cases reach the Court of Appeals, New York State’s highest court. The court decision requires full 24-hour compensation for those workers who cannot get 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep during a 24-hour shift but home care agencies continue to force 24 hours workdays and pay 13 hours. Workers file complaints at the Department of Labor.
As street attacks on Asian Americans increase in the US, Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC) fundraises and receives $10 million from the state government to fight violence against Asians. Home care workers employed by CPC are furious and speak out against the violence they suffer at CPC’s hands everyday. Workers highlight how the 24-hour workday has led to chronic insomnia, debilitating back, neck, shoulder and finger pain, chronic headaches and high blood pressure.
Thousands of women continue to take legal action- filing lawsuits in court and complaints in the Department of Labor. Some non-union workers receive some of their back wages through court settlements or judgments; however, many agencies continue to subject women to 24-hour shifts. The Department of Labor has yet to investigate any of the workers’ complaints and also has not taken any steps to stop agencies from continuing 24-hour shifts.
An investigation by New York State Assemblymember Ron Kim reveals how Chinese-American Planning Council threatens and retaliates against workers to keep them in 24-hour shifts and into falsifying work logs so CPC can pay just 13 hours of each 24-hour shift. It is illegal for law-breaking agencies like CPC to receive public funding. But despite the revelations in Assemblymember Kim’s report, the state government refuses to enforce these laws. CPC continues to receive hundreds of millions of state dollars annually.
1199SEIU, the union representing the largest percentage of unionized home care workers, announces a ‘historic’ arbitration award. Seven years after forcing workers into arbitration, the union gives employers a slap on the wrist, requiring, by their own estimation, an amount equivalent to 0.5% of unpaid wages to 24-hour workers. The award says nothing about the ongoing violations of laws and inhumane work conditions thousands of immigrant women are forced to suffer. It encourages the employers to continue the 24-hour workday.
‘Stop killing us’: New York’s home care providers near hunger strike over wage injustice Home care workers want the city council to end policy of 24-hour shifts for which they are paid for only 13 hours. The Guardian, May 18, 2026
Home Health Care Aides Say It’s Time to End ‘Inhumane’ 24-Hour Shifts The aides want the New York City Council to pass a law that would limit their shifts to 12 hours, except in the case of emergencies. NY Times, March 19, 2026