Fifteen home health aides started what they called an indefinite hunger strike on Thursday after the City Council failed to advance a bill banning 24-hour shifts, an issue that has roiled the mostly immigrant women working in the home care industry and the vulnerable patients who rely on their round-the-clock care.
For more than a decade, live-in home care workers have sought to end state rules that allow 24-hour home care workers to be paid for only 13 hours a day. The 24-hour shifts are permitted as long as workers are allotted three hours for meals breaks and at least five hours of sleep without interruption.
Workers say they routinely work in the same home up to 96 straight hours without rest — while getting paid for only a fraction of that time…