Building Racism

"Get up there and tell us a lie!" one man yelled as Bill Wong, a former senior field representative of the carpenters' union, took the stand. Many carpenters say that if their union had reacted more aggressively to their complaints, or had better policed nonunion members on the site, it would have headed off the lawsuit. But carpenters' union attorney Salinas says the union had been looking into the wage grievances, but those cases were dissolved because of the pending lawsuit.

Certainly, carpenters complaining of poor treatment and expressing interracial brotherly love make sympathetic characters. "The carpenters are adorable, aren't they?" Salinas said.

AIMCO's pinstripe-suited attorney from the 2002 lawsuit, Jim Reuben, seemed to measure his words as he stood up to speak, careful to say nothing that would get him heckled, yet careful not to say anything that would come back to haunt the company in a courtroom.

"On the personal level, I found the testimony surprising and troubling," he said. A sarcastic "Psssh!" erupted from somewhere in the back. "Every time I heard the name AIMCO mentioned, it sounded to me like [IMR Contractor Corporation] should be mentioned as well, but that's what our investigation will find out."

Supervisor Maxwell dug in: "Yes, but by and large, AIMCO is who the people know. It's who we know, it's who we made the contracts with. So we have to take that kind of responsibility."

"Understood," Reuben defers.

Until the lawsuit goes to court, the carpenters are waging private battles, many brought on by their time at the job site. Bob Ivy is on disability for a herniated disc after he jammed a countertop into steps while carrying it unassisted, and now walks stiffly, with constant pain. Hector Rodriguez says he now checks his house before he lets his family enter, since he thought he spotted the man who took him to the job site and a foreman driving by multiple times. Felix Cortes is worried the defendants may try to exact vengeance back in Mexico, given that the family of the man he's accusing in the lawsuit of taking $400 from his $800 weekly paycheck lives near to his own family's village in Oaxaca.

"Here, there's justice," Cortes says. "If someone does wrong, they punish him. There, the richest person wins."

Ivy says the case is not about the money. "I'm looking for change," he says. "I've been doing this for 35 years, and I'm still fighting for a job.

"How can I call this a career?" he continues. "It's been a struggle."