Assessing employee voice in restructuring processes against the capability approach : a case study in the Swiss metal sector

The paper focuses on the issue of employee voice during restructuring processes. The notion of “capability for voice” is mobilized to assess to what extent employees are able (and allowed) to express their viewpoints and make them count in the course of corporate restructurings. At first the prerequisites necessary for “capability for voice” to flourish are presented, then the notion is applied to a specific case study in the Swiss metal sector. The conclusions show that not all types of employee voice are allowed to flourish in the investigated case study, and point to the conditions to be fulfilled in order to increase the scope and effectiveness of such voice.