June 15, 2019:

Women in Switzerland on average earn 20% less than men.

Purple-clad protesters blowing whistles, banging pots & pans & brandishing feminist slogans filled the streets of Swiss towns & cities Friday, as women across the country went on strike for equal pay.

“I love badass women” & “Eliminate the patriarchy” figured among the messages on posters & banners, as women poured into the streets to vent their frustration with persistent gender discrimination & wage gaps in the wealthy Alpine nation.

The strike comes nearly three decades after women held the country’s first nationwide strike for equal pay.

“Wage equality has not been achieved. That is a good reason to go on strike,” Ruth Dreyfuss, who in 1998 became Switzerland’s first female president, said.

Women in Switzerland on average still earn 20 percent less than men. And for men & women with equal qualifications, the wage gap remains nearly eight percent, according to the National Statistics Office.

“We are here to make noise, because if we’re not seen, we don’t exist,” said Socialist MP Ada Marra.

Back in 1991, one in seven women in the country took part in the strike.

That was a remarkable turnout given that work stoppages have been extremely rare in Switzerland since employers and unions signed the "Peace at Work" convention in 1937. It states that differences should be worked out through negotiation rather than strikes.

Back then, many women were blocked from participating in the strike, and organisers fear a repeat Friday, with the country's main employers' organisation flatly opposed to the action.

Thursday's strike was born out of frustration at a bid to change the law to impose more oversight over salary distribution, which passed through the Swiss parliament last year.

The final text only applied to companies with more than 100 employees -- affecting fewer than one percent of employers -- and failed to include sanctions for those that allow persistent gender pay gaps.

Gaining recognition of women's rights has been a drawn-out process in Switzerland, which was one of the last countries in Europe to grant women the right to vote, in 1971.

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