Ah Lin Lok was a homecare worker for 10 years. She said that the job required her to work a “really really violent working schedule.”

“Our job becomes even more demanding and torturous at night. My first patient required me to get up every hour at night, every hour, at night to reposition the patient’s body.” Lin Lok said through a translator. 

Lin Lok has spent the last week on the steps of City Hall on a hunger strike, to end the 24-hour work day home aides like her have fought to end for nearly a decade. The strike ended yesterday, after a week. 

Advocates and hunger strikers rallying for No More 24 are hopeful that the hunger strike, their second this year with the previous one beginning and ending in April, would compel City Council Speaker Julia Menin to pass Int 303, or the No More 24 Act. 

This act would bar home health care employers from scheduling shifts longer than 12 hours and shifts that amount to more than 12 hours in one 24-hour period. Menin previously said she would support the measure and move it forward to voting, but Gothamist reported on Monday that her office stated there is no timeline for doing so. The bill initially had 17 sponsors, but now has dropped to 14.

Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani expressed support for the No More 24 workers last year on the campaign trail. Since becoming mayor, he has refused to support their demand for a city law that bans the 24-hour shift.

Supporters say passing the bill would not just end cruel labor practices for homecare workers, but would also benefit patients. “Someone who’s been up 20, 21, 22 hours away from their home, stressed…is not going to administer the care that any human deserves,” explained Trey Good, of the men’s group Brothas Express and who spoke at Tuesday’s rally. 

Critics believe that the bill would make it more difficult for elderly and disabled people to receive round-the-clock care in New York, and lead to more people who cannot perform basic tasks independently being institutionalized.

There are more than 600,000 people employed in the home care industry in New York state, according to data from last year. About 13,000 NYC residents require 24-hour care, reported Gothamist.

At a rally on July 28, supporters flooded outside of City Hall to listen to the stories of what the home aide workers have experienced.

 “They’re not asking for luxuries here. They’re not even asking for something that is the standard. They’re asking for 12-hour shifts… like they’ve been demonized for this.” said Lydia, an attendee and supporter of ‘No More 24.’ “Workers have told me that going on hunger strike is easier than working 24 hours. It is just reprehensible.”

Nearly a dozen current and retired home care workers are a part of their hunger strike, the first of which began in March of 2024, outside of City Hall. 

The initial “No More 24” act was introduced by Council Member Christopher Marte, in June 2022. It would have prevented home care employers from assigning their workers more than 12-hour shifts in a 24-hour period. The revised proposal would give workers the “option” to consent to a 24-hour day if they wanted.

Lin Lok described employer solutions when she pleaded for better hours. “The company did not stop it. They just like try to, you know, switch their schedule. Still 24-hour work days.”

The idea that workers would be able to have the choice of working 24 hour shifts is an illusion according to Lilyan Chu, a member of Youth Against Sweatshops. 

“The consent you’re proposing is not the consent these workers experience; because can you really say no to your boss? The boss just won’t give you work,” she said.

Workers and their advocates do not believe the revised proposal will change the long hours the home aides must work, especially considering that the industry consists of primarily immigrant women of color who they say are not taken seriously by employers.  

“It is a slap in the face to all the working women in New York City, and mostly women of color, and this is a huge violence to us,” said Lin Lok. Lin Lok said she feels as though the system she’s given her life to is preying on marginalized, underprivileged, immigrant women of color in order to make profit.

Representatives from Legal Aid Society, 1199 SEIU representatives, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, and United Federation of Teachers retired teachers chapter members also were present at the rally. 

Kiran, an organizer of the rally, noted the diversity of supporters who have firsthand experience with unjustly long shifts that have come out. “Tech workers who are sick of doing overnight on-call shifts… nurses and doctors have joined us because it’s endemic in the healthcare industry on 24-hour shifts.”

With each strike and rally, supporters of No More 24 hope to raise the pressure for Speaker Menin as she continues to refuse to move forward with the unaltered version of the act. Workers said they would continue their fight until Speaker Menin upholds the commitment. 

For supporters of No More 24 like Lydia, who attended the Jul. 28 protest, the fight is crucial to getting workplace standards improved across the board.

 “I think that there cannot be a world,” she said, “where we allow people to live this way, I can’t imagine a future that I want to be in, that I want to live for, that is like that.”

Additional reporting and photography contributed by Leair Davenport