Spatialization, foreign direct investment, and labor outcomes in the American states, 1978-1996

Emergent trends in the globalization of the economy and the spatial restruc turing of work portend many new challenges for workers around the world. Am ong the issues that have received insufficient attention is the impact of i nward foreign direct investment (FDI) on labor in the U.S. Previous researc h has been inconclusive and plagued by a lack of empirical breadth and by i nsufficient theoretical explanations. In this article, we first outline a t heory of spatialization as an extension of the social structures of accumul ation framework to anticipate the likely consequences of FDI for workers. S econd, we undertake an analysis of the forty-eight contiguous American stat es for the years 1978-96 of the consequences of inward FDI for labor's orga nizational capacity labor dissent, and the economic standing of labor. Our analysis demonstrates that inward FDI has a consistent negative effect on t hese labor outcomes that differs for manufacturing and nonmanufacturing FDI . We suggest that our findings are consistent with spatialization theory an d inform theoretical debates oat globalization and labor in the contemporar y U.S.