>How about we designate undocumented workers as the "most
>exploited" as their illegal status lowers their wages and benefits
>and downgrades their power to fight back.
How about undocumented athletes ?
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/sports/dominican-ballplayers.htm
The Washington Post Sunday, June 17, 2001; Page A01
The Business Of Building Ballplayers
In Dominican Republic, Scouts Find the Talent and Take the Money
By Steve Fainaru Washington Post Staff Writer
BANI, Dominican Republic
Some folks here speculate in corn or sugar cane; Enrique Soto speculates in infielders. He drives his big green pickup through the dust-coated streets, stopping near the vacant lots, near the playgrounds, near the dirt fields filled with kids playing baseball. That's how he discovered Willy Aybar.
The 13-year-old boy was fielding grounders on a rutted diamond near the Bani River. He weighed 120 pounds. Soto took measure of Aybar's supple wrists. He listened to the crack of his bat. With training and a proper diet, Soto figured, he could sell Willy Aybar to one of the major league teams that scour this tiny Caribbean nation for ballplayers.
Soto plied the malnourished youngster with protein supplements and balanced meals. He pitched him batting practice and hit him countless ground balls. When Aybar turned 16, baseball's legal signing age, Soto taught his illiterate prospect how to write his name. He then drove him into the capital, Santo Domingo, where Aybar printed his signature on a contract to receive $1.4 million from the Los Angeles Dodgers -- one of the largest signing bonuses in the history of the Dominican Republic.
And then, to secure his investment, Enrique Soto stole Willy Aybar's money, according to Aybar, his parents and baseball sources who have looked into the alleged swindle.
Last May, when the Dodgers released the first half of Aybar's bonus -- $490,000, after taxes -- Soto deposited the check in a Dominican bank account under his own name, according to Aybar and his family. Aybar's mother, Francia, said Soto gave her a lump-sum payment of 100,000 pesos, about $6,250, and a monthly stipend of less than $2,000. He paid the Philadelphia-based agent who negotiated Aybar's contract $35,000. He allegedly kept the rest, about $430,000, for himself.
Asked how much he received from his first bonus check, Aybar, now an 18-year-old third baseman on a Dodgers minor league team in Wilmington, N.C., replied: "Me? Nada."
[...]