Suffrage Day - Celebrating Women's Work

“Tomorrow’s celebration of Suffrage Day is time to mark successes in the area of women’s rights and celebrate the work that women do,” said Council of Trade Unions vice president Darien Fenton today.

Darien Fenton said this year’s achievement of paid parental leave was a victory for the women workers who had campaigned for many years.

“Suffrage Day is also time to take stock of what we have yet to achieve,” she said.

“While women still earn 84 cents for every $1 men earn it is not enough to simply count our successes.”

Women earn 84% of men’s average hourly earnings. The pay gap is even wider for Maori women who earn 74%, and Pacific women who earn 70%.

Darien Fenton said the priority issues for women workers were:

pay equity legislation to ensure that women's work is valued a law to provide protections for workers when their work is contracted out or the business sold improvements to paid parental leave, genuinely addressing work/life issues to make a difference

“Tomorrow we celebrate women gaining the right to vote,” she said.

“The suffragettes are remembered as women who made a real difference for their daughters and grand daughters. If we want to stand proudly in their tradition, we need to tackle these outstanding issues of inequity.”

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