1199 SIEU says it wants to end 24-hour shifts - but it has opposed city and state bills that would do so, and some question the sincerity of its objections.
Three days a week, Lai Yee Chan arrived at a stroke victim’s home for a 24-hour shift, turning him over every two hours throughout the night and helping him bathe and use the bathroom. The job, which Chan worked from 2007 until 2014, left her sleep deprived, affected her eyesight, led to joint pain, and kept her from her family.
For many of those hours, she wasn’t paid. New York state law stipulates that health aides can only be paid for 13 hours for each shift, mandating an unpaid eight-hour period for sleep and three hours for meals.
A vocal group of New York home aides has organized to ban 24-hour homecare shifts for years, and has most recently rallied in support of a New York City Council bill that would cap shifts at 12 hours and total weekly hours at 50.
But a goliath in New York health politics is blocking their path: their own union. At a heated, eight-hour hearing over the legislation earlier this month, 1199SEIU, the largest health care union in the state, came out against it. “We want to kill it. We’ll be happy with amending it if we have to settle for amending it, but we want to kill it outright,” the union’s press secretary told Documented.
The union argued reform should happen on the state rather than the city level–but it doesn’t support the bill to split up 24-hour shifts that’s before the legislature...
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