Labour-intensive workplaces in export processing zones (EPZs) are typically characterized as ‘sweatshop-like’, devoid of voice mechanisms. Using ethnographic data in a Sri Lankan EPZ apparel factory and focusing on social interaction on the shop floor, the findings demonstrated the way workers exercised formal and informal voice individually and collectively. These findings are understood against a theoretical dialogue between interdisciplinary perspectives of voice across different bodies of literature. Ethnographic insights on the enactment of voice illuminate the importance of worker agency and the social and cultural contextual nature of exercising voice in the workplace.
AckroydS (2012) Even more misbehaviour: what has happened in the last twenty years? In: BarnesATaksaL (eds) RethinkingMisbehaviour and Resistance in Organizations. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 1–27.
AllenMTuselmannHJ (2009) All powerful voice? The need to include ‘Exit’, ‘Loyalty’ and ‘Neglect’ in empirical studies too. Employee Relations31(5): 538–52.
4.
AnnerM (2011) Solidarity Transformed: Labor Responses to Globalization and Crisis in Latin America. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press.
5.
BainPTaylorP (2000) Entrapped by the ‘electronic panopticon’? Worker resistance in the call centre. New Technology, Work and Employment15(1): 2–18.
6.
BandyJMendezJB (2006) A place of their own? Women organizers in the maquilas of Nicaragua and Mexico. In: JohnstonHAlmediaP (eds) Latin American Social Movements. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 131–44.
7.
BattRColvinAJSKeefeJ (2002) Employee voice, human resource practices, and quit rates: evidence from the telecommunications industry. Industrial and Labor Relations Review55(7): 573–94.
8.
BOI (Board of Investments) (2004) Labour Standards and Employment Relations Manual. Colombo: BOI.
9.
BoyengeS (2007) ILO Database on Export Processing Zones (Revised). Geneva: International Labour Organization.
10.
BrooksEC (2007) Unraveling the Garment Industry: Transnational Organizing and Women’s Work. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
11.
BrysonACharlwoodAForthJ (2006) Worker voice, managerial response and labour productivity: an empirical investigation. Industrial Relations Journal37(5): 438–55.
12.
BuddJGollanPWilkinsonA (2010) New approaches to employee voice and participation. Human Relations6(3): 1–8.
13.
BulbeckC (2000) Re-orienting Western Feminisms: Women’s Diversity in a Postcolonial World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
14.
BurawoyM (2009) The Extended Case Method: Four Countries, Four Decades, Four Great Transformations, and One Theoretical Tradition. Berkeley, CA and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
15.
CarawayTL (2007) Assembling Women: The Formation of Global Manufacturing. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
16.
CompaL (2004) Workers’ Rights in Sri Lanka. Washington, DC: AFL-CIO Solidarity Centre.
17.
De AlwisM (2002) The changing role of women in Sri Lankan society. Social Research69(3): 675–91.
18.
DietzGWilkinsonARedmanT (2009) Involvement and participation. In: WilkinsonA. (eds) The Sage Handbook of Human Resource Management. London: Sage, 245–68.
19.
DonagheyJCullianeNDundonTWilkinsonA (2011) Reconceptualizing employee silence: problems and prognosis. Work, Employment and Society25(1): 51–67.
20.
DonagheyJCullinaneNDundonTDobbinsT (2012) Non-union employee representation, union avoidance and the managerial agenda. Economic and Industrial Democracy33(2): 163–83.
21.
DundonTRollinsonD (2004) Employee Relations in Nonunion Firms. London: Routledge.
22.
DundonTWilkinsonAMarchingtonMAckersP (2004) The meanings and purpose of employee voice. International Journal of Human Resource Management15(6): 1150–71.
23.
EdwardsP (2003) Industrial Relations: Theory and Practice. Oxford: Blackwell.
24.
EliasJ (2005) The gendered political economy of control and resistance on the shop floor of the multinational firm: a case-study from Malaysia. New Political Economy10(2): 203–22.
25.
EmersonRMFretzRIShawLL (1995) Writing Ethnographic Field Notes. Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press.
26.
FlemingPSpicerA (2007) Contesting the Corporation: Struggle, Power and Resistance in Organizations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
27.
FreemanRMedoffJ (1984) What Do Unions Do?New York, NY: Basic Books.
28.
FreemanRBBoxallPHaynesP (2007) What Workers Say: Employee Voice in the Anglo-American Workplace. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press.
29.
GopalakrishnanR (2007) Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining in Export Processing Zones: Role of the ILO Supervisory Mechanisms. Geneva: International Labour Office.
30.
GunatilakaR (1999) Labour Legislation and Female Employment in Sri Lanka’s Manufacturing Sector. Colombo: Institute of Policy Studies.
31.
GunawardanaS. (2007) Perseverance, struggle and organization in Sri Lanka’s export processing zones: 1978–2003. In: BronfenbrennerK (ed.) Global Unions: Challenging Transnational Capital through Cross-Border Campaigns. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 78–88.
32.
GunawardanaS (2010) The employment relations system of the Katunayake Free Trade Zone, Sri Lanka. PhD thesis, The University of Melbourne, Australia.
33.
HancockP (2006) Women, work and empowerment: a portrait of women workers in two of Sri Lanka’s export processing zones. Norwegian Journal of Geography60(3): 227–39.
34.
HardmanMJTaylorA (eds) (1999) Hearing Many Voices. Creskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
35.
HarlosKP (2001) When organizational voice systems fail: more on the deaf ear syndrome and frustration effects. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science37(3): 324–42.
36.
HewamanneS (2008) Stitching Identities in a Free Trade Zone: Gender and Politics in Sri Lanka. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
37.
HirschmanAO (1970) Voice, Exit and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations and States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
38.
Hondagneu-SoteloP (2007) Domestica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence. Berkeley, CA and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
39.
HuangXVandeVliertEVan der VegtG (2005) Breaking the silence culture: stimulation of participation and employee opinion withholding cross-nationally. Management and Organization Review1(3): 459–82.
40.
Iglesias-PrietoN (2001) Beautiful Flowers of the Maquiladora: Life Histories of Women Workers in Tijuana, 3rd Edition.Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
41.
ILO (International Labour Office) (2003) Third Item on the Agenda: Employment and Social Policy in Respect of Export Processing Zones (EPZs). Governing Body, 286/ESP/3 286th Session, ILO. Available (consulted 3December2003) at: http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/relm/gb/docs/gb286/pdf/esp-3.pdf
42.
KabeerN (2004) Globalization, labor standards, and women’s rights: dilemmas of collective (in)action in an interdependent world. Feminist Economics10(1): 3–35.
43.
KuruvillaS (1998) Linkages between industrialization strategies and industrial relations/human resource policies: Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and India. Industrial and Labor Relations Review49(4): 635–57.
44.
LynchC (2007) Juki Girls, Good Girls: Gender and Cultural Politics in Sri Lanka’s Global Garment Industry. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press/Cornell University Press.
45.
McKaySC (2006) Satanic Mills or Silicon Islands? The Politics of High-Tech Production in the Philippines. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
46.
Mahmood S. (2002) Feminist theory, embodiment, and the docile agent: some reflections on the Egyptian Islamic revival. Cultural Anthropology16(2): 202–36.
47.
MellahiKBudhwarPSLiB (2010) A study of the relationship between exit, voice, loyalty and neglect and commitment in India. Human Relations63(3): 349–69.
48.
MendezJB (2005) From the Revolution to the Maquiladoras: Gender, Labor, and Globalization in Nicaragua. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
49.
MohantyCT (2004) Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
50.
NaplesNADesaiM (2002) Women’s Activism and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics. New York, NY: Routledge.
51.
NgaiP (2005) Made in China: Women Factory Workers in a Global Workplace. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
52.
ObeysekereG (1984) The Cult of the Goddess Pattini. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
53.
OngA (1987) Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline: Factory Women in Malaysia. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
54.
OngA (2006) Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
55.
OrtnerSB (1995) Resistance and the problem of ethnographic refusal. Comparative Studies in Society and History37(1): 173–93.
56.
SalzingerL (2003) Genders in Production: Making Workers in Mexico’s Global Factories. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
57.
SewellGWilkinsonB (1992) Someone to watch over me: surveillance, discipline and the just-in-time labour process. Sociology26(1): 271–89.
58.
SiddiqiDM (2009) Do Bangladeshi factory workers need saving? Sisterhood in the post-sweatshop era. Feminist Review91(1): 154–74.
59.
Soni-SinhaU (2010) Gender, subjectivity and agency: a study of workers in Noida export processing zone, India. Global Labour Journal1(2): 265–94.
60.
SpivakGC (1993) Outside in the Teaching Machine. London: Routledge.
61.
StollerP (2005) The presence of the ethnographic present: some brief comments on Loic Waquant’sBody and Soul. Qualitative Sociology29(2): 197–9.
62.
StraussALCorbinJM (1998) Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
63.
StraussG (1998) An overview. In: HellerF. (eds) Organizational Participation: Myth and Reality. Oxford: Oxford University, 8–39.
64.
Teitelbaum E (2007) Can a developing democracy benefit from labour repression? Evidence from Sri Lanka. Journal of Development Studies43(5): 830–55.
65.
TownsendK (2005) Electronic surveillance and cohesive teams: room for resistance in an Australian call centre?New Technology, Work and Employment20(2): 47–59.
66.
UstubiciA (2009) Export-Processing Zones and Gendering the Resistance: ‘Women’s Strike’ in Antalya Free Zone in Turkey. New Working Paper Series. London School of Economics, Gender Institute. Available (consulted 3December2010) at: http://webfirstlive.lse.ac.uk/genderInstitute/pdf/Aysen.pdf
67.
WilkinsonAFayC (2011) New times for employee voice?Human Resource Management50(1): 65–74.
68.
WillmanPBrysonAGomezR (2006) The sound of silence: which employers choose ‘no voice’ and why?Socio-Economic Review4(2): 283–99.
