Home Health Aides Protest Chinese Social Services Giant CPC and Others—Again
The rancorous years-long dispute pits Chinese women and labor advocates against a tangle of establishment Chinese power brokers and Democratic pols. The recent arrest of protesters outside a CPC Wall Street gala has only fueled their fury.
| 10 Mar 2025 | 04:06
Dozens of impassioned protesters gathered outside the offices of the Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC) at 45 Suffolk St., just north of Grand Street, on March 5 to decry what they assert is ongoing mistreatment of home health aid workers.
The event, organized by the activist groups Ain’t I A Woman and Youth Against Sweatshops, was the latest of a series of weekly protests that began last summer and represent the escalation of a years-long grassroots labor struggle. The rally started at 10 a.m. under gray skies, with the temperature around 50 degrees.
Among the messages on the homemade protest signs, written in English or Chinese, were “CPC Profits off Modern Day Slavery”; “CPC Wage Sweatshop Champion of the Year”; “Stop the 24-Hour Workday”; “Stop Racist Violence” and “Stop Stealing Our Health”—with these last three being in the shape of a red octagonal stop sign.
More specific targets include CPC honcho Wayne Ho, caricatured as a Joker-like villain with green dollar bills in his eyes, ears and mouth; 14 CPC Board members; and Gov. Kathy Hochul, herself caricatured as an evil-looking white-faced clown on a sign reading “Korrupt Kathy Hochul Is Killing Us.”
If such rhetoric seems extreme, the protesters have their reasons, as well as a passion recalling that of those who occupied their neighborhood before them, the feisty, Yiddish-speaking Socialists of the Lower East Side.
Hochul—like Gov. Andrew Cuomo before her—is a target because she wields the power and the money that has funded CPC. This includes awarding CPC a $7 billion home healthcare contract while advocates say her Department of Labor (DOL) has failed to enforce state law that entitles workers to $90 million in “stolen” wages.
This $90 million figure comes from the controversial—and unique to erstwhile “labor friendly” New York—practice of assigning home health aides 24-hour shifts, while paying them for only 13 hours, the 11-hour difference ostensibly being time “off” for sleep and meals.
As for Wayne Ho, CPC’s president and CEO since 2017, he’s both well respected, with deep connections in New York Democratic politics, and fiercely derided, with critics mocking his myriad “social justice” bromides while critics claim he also oversees the systemic mistreatment of Chinese home healthcare workers.
For its part, CPC denies these charges, claiming they too support the end of 24-hour workdays—if they get the money to pay for it—and that they abide by state labor regulations. The CPC website says they support two paid 12-hour shifts.
Scorn for Ho reached a new intensity following the events of Thursday, Feb. 27, the date of CPC’s annual gala, held at Cipriani Wall Street.
As with all crowd scenes, accounts differ. While CPC did not respond to Straus News’ request for details, video posted on the Youth Against Sweatshops Instagram shows NYPD moving against the protesters, plastic zip ties at the ready.
Speaking to AsAm News, CPC denied calling the cops, adding, “We cannot control the actions of the police or the protesters, and any behavior that ultimately led to arrests.”
On March 5, CPC issued an extensive press release elaborating on their take on the gala protests and reiterating what they believe to be misrepresentations by the Ain’t I A Woman campaign.
In all, seven protesters were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.
Other video shows one tux-wearing gala attendee—identified by sources as Ken Paskar—angrily grabbing a phone from an independent journalist on the scene. It’s believed that Paskar—a friend of CPC general counsel Alan Gerson—was taken into police custody. At press time, the NYPD had not returned an email seeking clarification on the arrests.
Gerson is a former District 1 City Council Member, elected in 2001 and term-limited out in 2009. This seat is held today by Christoper Marte, the leading voice on behalf of home healthcare workers—an occupation of Marte’s mother.
Among the politicians present at the CPC Gala, seemingly unfazed by the protesters, were Sen. Charles Schumer; Congresswoman Grace Meng of Queens; Brooklyn D.A. Eric Gonzalez; and Assembly Member Harvey Epstein, who’s now running for City Council for the seat currently occupied by term-limited Carlina Rivera.
Epstein’s presence is notable in that he is among the 25 signatories of a November 2024 letter calling on the state DOL to enforce labor law so that the aggrieved Chinese home health aides can get their $90 million in back wages.
Other Manhattan Assembly Members who signed the letter include Linda Rosenthal, Tony Simone, Deborah Glick, Charles Fall, and Inez Dickens.
While this might appear to be a decent quorum to effect action, history suggests otherwise.
At the state level, activists assert, the workers have suffered from the collusion of CPC, their Democratic allies, and the powerful healthcare workers union, 1199 SEIU, which the protesters claim callously sold out the Chinese aides in return for other political favors.
If that sounds conspiratorial, consider the case of Christoper Marte.
In 2022, now Council Member Marte introduced “The No More 24 Act” (Int. 0175), to ban 24-hour workdays in New York City, which, despite bi-partisan majority support, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams refused to advance for a vote.
In March 2024, Marte introduced a similar bill, Int. 0615, and similarly, Speaker Adams—now a candidate for Mayor— hasn’t allowed the full council to vote upon it.
Speaking in Cantonese at the March 5 rally, home attendant Ai Yu Zeng, who was among those arrested outside Cipriani Wall Street, said, “I have worked 24-hour shifts for more than 10 years, and the 24-hour workday is extremely harmful. My health has deteriorated, and I can hardly sleep at night.”
“On the night of February 27, I joined over 100 fellow home care workers in protesting at the luxurious banquet of CPC, who is the head of the snake of all the 24-hour workday sweatshops. They lead the way in refusing to pay back workers for their hard-earned wages! CPC even called the police to unjustly arrest us elderly workers—this is absolutely outrageous! I demand that CPC immediately pay back stolen wages!”