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Christopher Marte speaking at rally
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| Christopher Marte, Councilmember for District 1, said “Why don’t these women who have sacrificed their love, family, time, and health matter? Why doesn’t my mother matter? In the past four years we have had a majority women City Council. But I do not remember when we passed legislation that would impact and change for the better a woman lead industry. I will continue fighting until we abolish the 24-hour workday here in New York City.” |
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Vittoria Fariello speaking at rally
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| Vittoria Fariello, Ain’t I a Woman?! Campaign Chair, said “This grotesque practice of 24-hour workdays is not just a reflection of how little our politicians and our culture value women. It shows how little they value care work, the work women have always been expected to do. Speaker Menin, a broken glass ceiling means little when the women holding up the floor are still working 24 hours a day. Your failure to pass this bill is not only a failure for home care workers. It is a failure for all women. And we will not stop until every 24 hour shift is ended!”
Alexis Kaloyanides, a mother and community organizer, said “Speaker Menin, you are a working mother! You hold one of the most powerful positions in New York City! Ask yourself – would you have risen to this level without a team of people to help care for your children? Without your vast family wealth and resources? Any mother will tell you: ‘A woman’s work is never done.’ So I am asking all of you here today – teachers, nurses, paraprofessionals, and home health aids – commit yourself to fight like a mother, for the good of our homecare workers and of all New Yorkers!” |
| Peter Liu, an organizer with Youth Against Sweatshops, said “As a man, I am angry at the devaluation of women’s work because it has broken my family. Right now, women care workers in NYC are working 24-hour shifts. They come home exhausted like my grandma, unable to provide care for their own children. Their husbands are left scrambling like my grandpa to keep together their broken family. How dare City Council Speaker Julie Menin think it’s ok for women to work 24 hours a day when the 24-hour workday has torn countless families apart! All women and men should rise up and join No More 24, for our families and for ourselves.” |
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Rev. Letiah Fraser speaking at rally
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| Rev. Dr. Letiah Fraser, a theologian at Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice, said “Who does so much of the care work in this city? Women. Black and Brown women. Women caring for elders and disabled people while also trying to care for themselves and their own families. Care work is sacred work. Our elders and disabled people need safe care. Home-care workers need safe working conditions. And their families need them too. Care should not require one person’s body to be sacrificed so that another person’s body can survive. So we are calling on Speaker Julie Menin and the New York City Council: Bring Intro 303 to a vote.”
Shannon Burkett, a nurse with Downtown Nasty Women, said “I’m a registered nurse at two major hospitals in NYC and I’ve personally been mandated to work for 24 hours in an emergency. I can attest to what the United Nations say: that it is torture! After a certain amount of hours, it feels like your skin is crushing in on your bones because you are so tired. I love my patients, I love taking care of them, but you have to know our bodies have limits! I stand with my sisters of all healthcare workers, and I will keep standing with them and speaking out until we get No More 24!” |
| Echo Chen, an organizer with Flushing Workers Center, said “By refusing to write No More 24 Act into law, Menin shows her real thinking: women deserve to be tortured, ignored, and demeaned. If this is not outrageous sexism, then what is? What do we do when a woman in power is weaponized against women, pitting us against each other, and using the very image of care to outrageously trample on women’s body, women’s work, and destroy the very essential labor and human emotions that we all desperately rely on? Do we fight or do we find excuses for ourselves to avoid the fight? I am angry, but Julie Menin, there are so many angrier women out there who are FED UP and can’t wait to fight you!”
Rev. Mira Sawlani-Joyner, a minister with Riverside Church, said “I have experienced what relentless caregiving does to a mother. My physical and mental health deteriorated. Many mothers know exactly what I am talking about. So when I hear that home health care workers are expected to work 24-hour shifts while being paid for only a portion of that time, I have to ask: Whose time are we saying matters? Whose bodies are we willing to exhaust? As a mother, I know what sleep deprivation does to the body. As a daughter of immigrants, I know what happens when we tell women that sacrificing their bodies is simply the price of providing for their families. No more treating caregivers as disposable.” |
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