A pair of radical activist groups, one that openly calls itself a communist training ground, the other that dismissed the October 7 massacre as "chickens coming home to roost", have been picketing and petitioning outside New York City Hall to push the City Council toward a vote on a bill affecting an estimated 130,000 home care workers across the city.

The New York Young Communist League and Youth Against Displacement have campaigned in support of Lower Manhattan Councilman Chris Marte's "No More 24" bill, which would repeal the 24-hour workday for home care aides, the New York Post reported. The measure has languished in the council for years. City Council Speaker Julie Menin said it could come to a vote as early as April.

The bill itself addresses a real labor concern. But the groups leading the charge carry records that stretch well beyond workplace advocacy, into pro-communist propaganda, anti-American rhetoric, and apologetics for terrorism against Israeli civilians.

Who's doing the pushing

The New York Young Communist League bills itself as a "training ground" for young people to convert the United States into a communist society. Its X account offers a window into the group's worldview. One post praised Joseph Stalin:

"Joseph Stalin may have departed, but he left excellent advice on the task of party-building and the true purpose of a worker's newspaper as a collective organizer."

Another invoked Mao Zedong: "Mao said that a revolutionary must have lots of patience. It takes time and sometimes the contradiction to capitalism must become starker for people to see." Yet another post dismissed negative reporting about China's government, claiming: "Almost seems like the things about which the media have been trying for years to make us hate and fear China are actually bulls***."

These are not fringe internet accounts with no footprint. These are groups showing up at City Hall, petitioning elected officials, and shaping the political pressure around legislation that would affect tens of thousands of New Yorkers. The question of how closely elected officials align with those who carry water for hostile foreign ideologies is not abstract here. It is playing out on the steps of a municipal building.

Youth Against Displacement, meanwhile, was originally formed to fight displacement within Chinatown, a sympathetic cause on its face. But the group's public statements veer far from housing policy.

In a 2023 open letter published to Medium, Youth Against Displacement described the October 7 terrorist attack on Israeli civilians as "chickens coming home to roost." In 2025, the group promoted a "F*** the Fourth" town hall on Instagram that described the United States as a "settler colony" and urged attendees to resist "US fascism and imperialism."

What the bill would do

The "No More 24" bill targets a genuinely grueling practice: 24-hour shifts for home health aides, many of them low-wage workers caring for elderly and disabled New Yorkers. The bill would require employers to give one week's notice and obtain employee consent before scheduling shifts longer than 12 hours.

That version represents a compromise. DocumentedNY reported that the bill originally promised to ban the 24-hour workday outright but was revised after the mayor's office intervened. The same outlet reported that Gov. Kathy Hochul pressured the council to shelve the measure because it could send Medicaid costs soaring.

Representatives for both the governor and Councilman Marte did not respond to the Post's requests for comment.

At an unrelated Thursday press conference, Speaker Menin pushed back on the report about Hochul's involvement. She framed the bill's evolution as a normal legislative process.

"The bill had gone under a number of different changes. We've been working with Councilmember Marte and other stakeholders and additional changes have been made, so we look forward to sharing a new version of the bill with the governor's office."

That language, "stakeholders", is doing a lot of work. Among the stakeholders pressing hardest are groups that celebrate Stalin, defend Mao, and call the Fourth of July a celebration of fascism. Whether Menin and the council acknowledge that publicly is another matter.

The mayor's silence

Mayor Zohran Mamdani presents his own complication. Mamdani supported ending 24-hour shifts while serving in the state Assembly and once went on a 15-day hunger strike alongside taxi drivers, a record that signals sympathy for the bill's aims. Yet as mayor, he has not committed to signing it.

Mamdani's broader political profile has already drawn scrutiny. His socialist background has been a subject of national attention, and his handling of this bill will test whether his governing decisions match his activist past, or whether the political math of Medicaid costs and Albany pressure overrides ideology.

The mayor's office did not respond to the Post's request for comment on the bill.

A pattern, not an accident

None of this happens in a vacuum. New York City politics has a long history of radical groups attaching themselves to legitimate causes. The Post noted a prior report about former Mayor Bill de Blasio traveling to Colombia with Code Pink, the anti-war group. The pattern is familiar: a sympathetic issue, worker rights, housing, peace, becomes the vehicle for organizations whose actual commitments run toward anti-American and anti-Western ideology.

The home care workers at the center of this bill deserve better advocates. These are people working brutal hours for modest pay, often caring for the city's most vulnerable residents. Their cause should not require an alliance with groups that praise history's most prolific mass murderers or describe the slaughter of Israeli civilians as justified blowback.

The broader trend of left-wing leaders failing to draw clear lines against extremism in their own ranks is not confined to New York. But the city's council members now face a concrete choice: bring the bill to a vote on its merits, or let the groups doing the loudest lobbying define the terms.

There are open questions the council has yet to answer. What would the Medicaid cost impact actually look like? How many of the estimated 130,000 affected workers support the revised version versus the original outright ban? And will the council publicly address who, exactly, has been leading the pressure campaign on their doorstep?

Progressive governance in blue cities has a recurring credibility problem: the gap between the stated beneficiaries of a policy and the actual interests of the people driving it. In San Francisco, it's nonprofit graft. In New York, it's communist organizers wrapping themselves in the language of worker protection.

Councilman Marte's bill may well be good policy. The 24-hour shift is a relic that most Americans would find indefensible. But when the loudest voices demanding action are groups that venerate Stalin, defend Mao, mock the Fourth of July, and excuse terrorist attacks on civilians, the council owes New Yorkers a straight answer about whose agenda it is actually advancing.

Good policy doesn't need bad company. And 130,000 home care workers shouldn't have to share a coalition with people who think America is the real villain.