Equal Pay Day Ceremony set for April 10

Equal Pay Day Ceremony set for April 10

The public is invited to attend the Equal Pay Day proclamation ceremony hosted by the Kaua’i Committee on the Status of Women (KCSW) and partnering with the Zonta Club of Kaua’i and Zonta Club of Hanalei. The event will be held on Tuesday, April 10, 12:30 p.m. at the Līhu‘e Civic Center, Mo‘ikeha rotunda.

During the ceremony, Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. will highlight the need to address the issue of equal pay for equal work, and encourage elimination of the gender pay gap. The public is encouraged to wear “red” the symbol for “in the red” in pay which still exists today for equal work.

While the wage gap has improved since the 1960s, women still earn, on average, only 70 percent of what men earn. Equal Pay Day symbolizes how far into the current year a women must work to earn as much as a man earned in the previous year, and is based on statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau.

In addition to annually co-hosting an Equal Pay Day ceremony, KCSW’s Chair, Patricia Wistinghausen shared, “Recently at our January meeting, the women of the Committee signed and submitted testimony to our state House of Representatives, in support of HB671 Relating to Equal Pay. The bill is meant to promote gender equality in the workplace and help close the pay gap between men and women. And as the motto goes, we want ‘Equal Pay for Equal Work’ though we aim for this to be more than just a saying, and to be put into practice throughout Hawai`i.”

The KCSW is part of the Hawai’i State Commission on the Status of Women, which strives to advance the status of women and girls by acting as a catalyst for positive change through advocacy, education, collaboration and program development.

The KCSW meets on the third Wednesday of the month. The next scheduled meeting is on April 18 at 5 p.m. at the Līhu‘e Civic Center, Mo‘ikeha Building, Meeting Room 2A/2B. For information about this and other events, please go to: www.kauai.gov/kccsw

All KCSW meetings are open to the public.

If you need an ASL interpreter, materials in an alternate format, or other auxiliary and support, or an interpreter for a language other than English, please contact the Office of Boards and Commissions at 241-4919 or via email sent to smuragin@kauai.gov at least seven days prior to the event.