More than seven months after the creation of a municipal commission on day laborer job centers, that commission has yet to meet.

The list of commission members, who were to be appointed by the City Council and the mayor, has not been made public. But it is hoped the first meeting will take place within the next month.

“The commission will meet in the next few weeks, and we anticipate releasing the details at an early date,” stated the office of Guillermo Linares, commissioner of Immigrant Affairs.

The bill creating the commission was signed into law by Mayor Bloomberg in October 2005, and the members were supposed to have been named six months ago. The commission's purpose is to study the need for opening day laborer job centers.

Several people we interviewed give various reasons for the lack of progress, from politics to bureaucratic delays, including the leadership transition in the Council after the November 2005 elections.

The requirement that day laborers be included on the commission appears to have caused tensions. The law declares that of the 20 members, “at least 12 shall be day laborers or representatives of groups with experience working on matters that affect day laborers.”

According to the law, at least three of the members named by the mayor and four of those named by the Council must be day laborers.

But it is not known how successfully this requirement has been fulfilled. Oscar Paredes Morales, of the Latin American Workers' Project (Proyecto de Trabajadores Latinos), said that due to concerns about whether undocumented immigrants can serve on the commission, the Project had to submit only names of day laborers who are legally residing in the country.

“We are worried that there are not enough day laborers” on the commission, and “it is very, very important that the workers be a part of it,” said Amy Sugimori of the National Employment Law Project, who will not be part of the commission but who has been following the matter closely.

“There is no one more expert on the matter than those who have been living through the problem,” said Mayra Peters-Quintero of the Immigrants' Rights Clinic of New York University. Peters-Quintero said that, at first, the commission as proposed would have been “without any participation at all by either day laborers or community groups. It was [to be] a commission entirely disconnected from the problem,” she stated. “I'm glad that the Council at least recognized that the participation of laborers and organizers is key.”

In any case, Peters-Quintero thinks the commission might end up playing only a symbolic role.

“In fact, I believe that what the commission is going to study has already been studied and resolved,” said the lawyer. “It has been thoroughly well established that job centers are a viable solution to the problems of worker exploitation. A commission to study what has already been established, not only in New York but in the entire country. I do not want to take away any credit the city deserves,” she added, but “I believe there are other methods [of dealing with his issue] than to create another commission to make another study.”

Councilmember John Liu, who will probably be part of the commission, said the commission “is definitely necessary.” Liu said that his district includes many street corners where day laborers gather [waiting to be hired], which have become points of tension. “The issue of day laborers definitely agitates people's emotions,” he commented.