The electronics industrial sector in Glenrothes and most of central Scotland was dependent upon an inward investment strategy that led to almost 43% of employment in foreign-owned plants which were susceptible to changes in global economic markets.

Despite years of U.A.W. recruitment efforts, there are now 60,000 non-union workers at foreign-owned domestic plants, and that figure is likely to grow substantially as more foreign-owned plants come on line.

Mr. Gettelfinger, 58, who began working on a Ford assembly line in Kentucky in 1964, promises to talk about contract negotiations with the Big Three auto companies and the union's efforts, so far unsuccessful, to organize foreign-owned plants.

Two years later, not only is the factory still around, but there also is a union, and it recently negotiated a labor contract that provides raises, scholarships and other benefits that are unheard of among the country's 500 foreign-owned plants.

But the U.A.W. has failed to organize workers at foreign-owned plants, and the discrepancy creates an uneven playing field.

For the most part, the first wave of foreign-owned plants were farther north, in places like Ohio and Kentucky, while the newest factories are concentrated in the Deep South.

In aggregate then, the run-down of employment in foreign-owned plants was steadier than in domestic industry, reflecting more the international average of changes in the economy and productivity.

International The plunge in the value of Mexico's peso will help sustain foreign-owned plants along the border.

Here, the dangers have already been vivid for two decades, as Mexico has drawn hundreds of foreign-owned industrial plants, called maquiladoras, with tariff, tax and other incentives.

By law, the foreign-owned plants are obliged to ship their hazardous wastes back out of Mexico for disposal.