End 24-Hour Workdays

Brooklyn, NY, October 8, 2025

On a rainy October morning, Brandworkers joined Youth Against Sweatshops (YAS) outside the New York State Department of Labor at 55 Hanson Place, Brooklyn. The rally, organized by YAS, brought together City College YDSA, Fem Gen Flushing, Gabriela NY, NMASS, Plaza Proletaria, and Young Communist League. They demanded Governor Hochul immediately end the 24-hour workday still imposed on thousands of home care workers across New York City.

Home care workers, the majority of them immigrant women, are routinely scheduled for 24-hour shifts. They are expected to provide around-the-clock care while only being paid for 13 hours of work. This policy leaves workers physically and emotionally exhausted, with devastating effects on their bodies and families. It’s also a form of wage theft. Current NY State law requires employers to pay for all 24 hours if workers don’t receive 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Yet the Department of Labor (DOL) and Gov. Hochul have allowed exploitative employers, like the Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC), to continue abusing workers with little accountability. DOL and Hochul have closed wage theft cases and given billions of Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP) public dollars to sweatshops like the CPC. Home attendants who have stood up to the CPC demanding split shifts, two 12-hour shifts, and a return of stolen wages, over $90million, have faced threats of jail.  

This neglect enables the same practices of wage theft and extreme overwork that are rampant in food manufacturing, restaurants, and other industries that rely heavily on immigrant labor. Wage theft is the most pervasive form of labor exploitation in New York City, a crime that remains largely unpunished. An estimated 2.1 million New Yorkers are victims annually, with estimates of one to four billion in stolen wages each year in NYC alone. The food manufacturing industry is a significant contributor to this crisis. For instance, workers at Brooklyn-based Flaum Appetizing endured 80-hour weeks without overtime pay, faced discrimination and verbal abuse, including anti-immigrant insults from senior management, and faced retaliation when they demanded their rightful wages. 

Similarly, in the restaurant industry, workers, like Hannah Lopez, have faced retaliation for asserting their rights. Hannah, a long-time employee at Tao Restaurant Group, was fired after advocating for her coworkers’ right to use Earned Safe and Sick Time Leave under the Earned Safe and Sick Time Act (ESSTA). Despite multiple enforcement actions from the Department of Consumer and Worker Protections (DCWP), the company has refused to comply. Hannah’s case is now pending a verdict that could strengthen ESSTA and workers’ ability to use their sick leave without fear of retaliation.

Brandworkers helped Flaum Appetizing workers recover over $500k in stolen wages, and is now supporting Hannah secure an important victory for NYC workers’ rights and ESSTA.  The persistence of wage theft and weak enforcement highlights the urgent need for policies like ending 24-hour workdays, but immediate long-term change depends on strong, worker-led unions that are shaped by and accountable to workers themselves. The same systems that exploit home care workers also shape conditions in food manufacturing, restaurants, and countless other industries across New York. The courage of home care workers leading this fight shows that exploitation and wage theft will not be tolerated by workers in NYC.