Mission:
We are an Independent Monitoring Team with capacity to contribute to the welfare of workers, using a strategy that links gender analysis and the promotion of human rights to achieve social and economic justice.
Vision:
EMIH monitors, verifies, researches and documents the behaviour of the labour market, compliance with legislation and national and international procedures in labour relations within in the export industries, as well as the working conditions under which men and women in the formal, informal and home sectors.
EMIH romotes and enables the use of standards, principles, policies and procedures relating to human rights, gender and social responsibility, and provides linkages for coordination with networks, institutions and local and international organizations.
EMIH's website: http://www.emihonduras.org/
Some examples of EMIH's work with MSN:
A new study co-authored by the Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN - Canada), the Honduran Independent Monitoring Team (EMIH), and Professionals for Corporate Social Auditing (PASE - Nicaragua) challenges the conventional wisdom that competing on the basis of cheap labour is the only option for poor garment producing countries.
On September 30 - October 2, 2008, approximately 60 representatives of women's, human rights, trade union, and other non-governmental organizations from 10 countries in the Americas gathered in San Pedro Sula, Honduras to share information and experiences on the impacts of the end of the import quota system three years earlier in January 2005.
In December 2003, MSN, the Canadian Labour Congress and the Independent Federation of Honduran Workers (EMIH) filed a formal complaint with the Fair Labor Association (FLA) concerning the unjust firings of workers at a Gildan factory in Honduras. The next month, the same parties filed a complaint with the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC).
When Gildan subsequently announced it was closing the Honduran factory in the midst of the complaints process, grassroots campaigns targeting Gildan Activewear in Canada and the United States succeeded in pressuring Gildan to agree to a corrective action plan.
Campaigning against Gildan proceeded until 2006, when MSN, the WRC and EMIH released a joint final report showing that while Gildan hadn't fully complied with the agreement, it did make serious efforts to do so in later months of the process. MSN has since suspended its Gildan campaign.