Zhu Nu Jun has worked as a home care aide in New York City for eight years, working three 24-hour shifts a week. That increased to four 24-hour shifts a week last year.
It can be brutal and intense work.
“I’ve had enough of these long hours of very difficult work that have destroyed my body,” she said “My fingers are already deformed. I have a knee problem, my eyesight has worsened, my hair is falling out. I can’t even pick up a pen with my right arm due to all the work of carrying patients and this has happened to many workers I know. Only New York City has the 24-hour one shift.”
But the tough labor is only part of the issue that she faces. Many home care workers in New York city also say that their industry is set up to practice large-scale wage theft, with some of their work hours effectively being unpaid.
Home care workers claim the 13 hours of pay they receive for 24-hour shifts are supposed to include at least five hours of uninterrupted sleep and meal breaks, but that doesn’t occur given the lack of enforcement and often serious medical needs their patients have.
Jun says according to New York state department of labor calculations, she’s actually owed $235,000 in unpaid back wages for work she has done on these shifts.
“At night, I can’t sleep for even one hour. The patient, day and night, needs to get to the bathroom. I have to carry the patient to their wheelchair and then the bathroom,” she said.
Recently, home care workers in New York City protested outside city hall to demand a vote on a bill that would limit the number of hours that can be assigned to those who currently work 24-hour shifts and are only compensated for 13 hours.
The bill, which has a majority of support in the city council, has yet to receive a vote and workers are calling on the New York City council president, Adrienne Adams, to allow one. The legislation would limit the number of hours assigned to home care workers to 12-hour shifts.
Jun was one of the protesters outside New York city hall demanding a vote on legislation to ban the 24-hour shift exemptions for home care workers.
“We’re glad this bill exists because it makes us feel like we’re finally being treated like human beings,” she added. “Around the US, only New York City has these shifts. This is exploitation.”
Wage theft in the home care industry in the US is a rampant issue, with high reports among workers of overtime violations, working without getting paid and minimum wage violations. Some 554 wage theft violations filed with the New York department of labor from home care workers total over $64.5m, with estimates the industry owes billions of dollars to home care workers for the unpaid 11 hours of 24-hour shifts.
Workers and advocates have criticized the use of 24-hour – shifts, calling it a racist and sexist practice permitting the exploitation of a workforce largely consisting of immigrant women of color.
Home care workers are paid through Medicaid funding, with worker advocates claiming the current system benefits insurance companies and home care agencies at the expense of the workers. Assemblyman Harvey Epstein estimated it would cost Medicaid an additional $1bn a year to cover the cost of the rest of the 24-hour shift, money which he noted was being saved by Medicaid and the state off the backs of the workers not receiving pay for those hours.
“The insurance companies and agencies benefit from this system. We don’t know exactly how much money goes to the agencies and insurance companies,” said JoAnn Lum, an organizer with National Mobilization Against Sweatshops “The attitudes to justify or rationalize these abusive conditions are part of a racist, sexist perspective in our society to maintain these 24-hour shifts that don’t value or recognize the workers to address those conditions.”
Home care workers have been fighting for years to eliminate 24-hour shifts in New York City, impacting a workforce of nearly 130,000.
In 2019, a court of appeals ruled it was legal to pay home care workers for 13 hours out of 24-hour shifts, upholding a New York state department of labor exemption. The court decision overruled lower-court decisions from class action lawsuits filed in 2017 that deemed the exemption illegal.
After the ruling, a state bill to address the 24-hour shifts was introduced in 2021, but the bill did not receive a vote in the state house or senate.
In 2022, home care workers were pushing for a 50% wage increase proposed in the Fair Pay for Home Care Act, but only received a $3 raise to $18 an hour included in the New York state health budget.
Opponents to the city council legislation include the home care agency industry which has claimed the bill will worsen home care aide shortages and negatively impact healthcare of the elderly and disabled who rely on home care workers. 1199 SEIU, which represents home care workers, has also opposed the city council legislation claiming they do so because they favor addressing the 24-hour shifts at the state level.
