Groups mark International Women's Day
The Daily News (Kamloops)
February 28, 2009

Bread and roses on Monday morning serve as a symbolic start to a week of local activities leading up to International Women's Day, March 8.

Women's groups will hand out bread and roses downtown after staging a press conference…. Bread and roses, representing the ongoing struggle for fair wages and dignified conditions, have come to represent International Women's Day since its origins almost a century ago….

"We want to celebrate International Women's Day but we also want to highlight the issues," said Coun. Nancy Bepple, one of the organizers….

Equal pay for equal work remains an objective 101 years after 15,000 women marched through the streets of New York City. After promising to move ahead with pay equity, the federal government has backed off with a review of the whole process.

"They may have backed away from it but I don't think women have," Bepple said.

She cited national statistics comparing the annual earnings of women and men, $27,000 compared to $45,000.

In Kamloops the figures are $17,000 and $34,000 respectively.

"In either case it's about half, not even two-thirds. That's a big issue," especially when it comes to the lack of affordable child care and the burden that places on single mothers in particular, she noted.