Hunger strike to end 24-hour home health aide shifts ends after 5 days

NEW YORK - A hunger strike outside City Hall ended Monday after five days. 

It was designed to pressure the city to end to 24-hour shifts for health care aides. 

There were flowers and applause for the 20 women who ended their hunger strike. Lai Yee Chan, 69, said she felt both exhausted and energized as she fought to end 24-hour shifts in her chosen profession. 

Speaking through a translator, she explained she has been a home health aide for 22 years, and that the 24-hour shifts "took away my freedom." 

"I'm doing this for the next generation," she said. 

"We either let 24-hour workdays drag us down into further and further misery, or we unite together and fight back against the system that only wants to kill us," one speaker said at the rally. 

The push is to ban 24-hour work shifts through a bill in the City Council introduced by Councilman Christopher Marte. 

"My mom worked 24 hour shifts as a home attendant for seven years. Sometimes she leave for three days and we wouldn't see her," Marte said. "It's greed, right? Insurance, companies in home care agencies are making money off the backs of these mostly immigrant women. They're working 24 hour shifts, and only getting 13 hours of pay." 

Some opponents of the bill said this should be handled at the state level. Home care aides are allowed to work 24-hour shifts because of an interpretation of state law that says 13 hours of pay for the shift is sufficient. 

CBS New York has reached out to industry representatives and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams. A representative for the Home Care Association of New York State told us concerns about the bill include the ballooning of health care costs and possible gaps in service. 

Organizers said this is a pause and not the end, and more protest actions are planned, including a large one for May Day.

The need for more health care aides continues to grow. 

"So we're seeing this population that needs this care going up, and then we see a workforce population going down," Marte said. "No one should be working for 24 hour shifts."

The hunger strikers say they will rest, re-energize and then they'll return.