Red Solo cups and crushed take-out containers accumulate in the hallways on the weekend, everywhere from East Quad to Ziv Quad. Precarious stacks of beer cans balance on recycling bins. A strange smell permeates the dormitory hallways, and it's clear that somebody was sick. It's Friday night-people are at parties or out in Boston. Everybody is having fun, but what about all of the trash that's left behind after the takeout has been eaten and the drinks have been drunk? Who are the people that clean up our messes? This question troubled Julia Korn '11 during her first year at Brandeis.

"It was a Friday night, and I remember the [vomit] just kind of sat there all weekend. It wasn't the fact that it was gross that got to me; it was the fact that someone was going to come into work and that was what they were going to find on Monday morning," Korn says.

"I realized there was a disconnect between the student body and the custodial workers; the students clearly weren't humanizing the workers," she says.

Korn's concern for the custodial staff eventually led her to join the Brandeis Labor Coalition, where she was able to connect with other like-minded students.

Students originally established the BLC in 2004 to tackle the wage disparity among custodial staff, according to club member Rachel Sier '11.

From its inception in 2004 until 2006, the BLC worked with the administration to end the payment inequality between different groups of custodians at Brandeis. At the time, there were two groups of custodians: approximately 65 Brandeis custodians and 20 contracted laborers from Hurley of America and SJD Inc. custodial service providers for colleges across New England. The staff hired by Hurley of America and SJD Inc. received $3.13 less per hour than the staff hired by Brandeis, according to an Aug. 11, 2005 issue of the Boston Globe. Peter French, former University Executive Vice President, was cooperative in working with the BLC. In that issue of the Globe, French was quoted saying, "'We take seriously our responsibility, rooted in the university's foundational pillar of social justice, to offer competitive and equitable wages.'"

The BLC organized a rally during spring 2005 to garner student support for wage equality on campus and organized a panel of contracted custodial laborers to raise awareness about the payment disparity. Their efforts eventually paid off. In August 2006, the University created 22 new custodial positions and the formerly contracted laborers were put on the University payroll to receive equal wages, as reported in a Sept. 12, 2006 issue of the Justice.

The aims of the BLC have expanded since its creation. "The club's goal is to raise awareness about labor issues and to actively work to help attain fair labor practices," according to its constitution. The BLC works on a micro level to achieve fair labor practices for the Brandeis stafft-particularly its facilities workerst-but also seeks to address problematic labor practices on a global scale, such as sweatshop labor.

"What I really think is [the BLC's] strongest attribute is that it is focused on direct action. . We can take all of these ideas we talk about at Brandeis and put them into action," Sier explains.

BLC members have diverse interests and bring their own expertise to furthering the club's aims. Alana Pellerito '13 and Dara Rosenkrantz '12 are both Psychology and Hispanic Studies majors who utilize their experience as English as a Second Language tutors for the English Language Learning program in order to better communicate with the Spanish-speaking custodial staff.

The BLC has always had a non-hierarchical structure. "We don't have a treasurer or a president or anything like that," Clair Weatherby '12 says. "BLC is by people, for people," Sier adds. Responsibilities are shared and members take turns leading the meetings. "Everyone is an equal member. Everyone plays an integral role in the club," Rosenkrantz says.

This structure also means that all members have the ability to determine the club agenda. One of Sier's favorite things about the BLC is that "it's a very small club, and we are really driven by member interest. If somebody comes in and they are really interested in sweat free labor and fair trade coffee, ... that is really where we derive our campaigns from." Despite the benefits of its size, "BLC aspires to create a bigger community on campus," says Sier.

"BLC was the place that allowed me the independence and the support that I needed to run [a project] myself which was great," Korn says, who created a custodial biography project in fall 2008. BLC members conduct interviews with the custodial staff of North and Massell quads and hang the biographies in the first-year dormitories. New worker biographies will be hung this week.

Korn's initiative seeks to give the custodial staff a human face. "I go and interview the custodial workers about their lives, . their favorite desserts, what they do when they're not working, you know . human questions," she adds.

The BLC also organizes an annual Worker Appreciation Café to encourage interaction between the students and custodial staff. The BLC received a grant from the Brandeis Pluralism Alliance to organize the upcoming Worker Appreciation Café, which will be held on Nov. 19 in the Shapiro Campus Center Atrium. Weatherby helped organize last year's event.

"It was just coffee, donuts and pastries . and the custodians and students. It was really cool to see them together sitting and chatting, because on campus that never happens," she says.

The BLC advocates for fair labor practices around the world, working to bring fair trade products to campus. "It's about having a close relationship with [Facilities Services] . because it is the institutional way of attacking it," Sier says.

BLC encouraged students to write-in requests for fair trade products in the questionnaires distributed to students regarding dining services. You can see their efforts in dining halls across campus-there are fair trade coffee options almost everywhere. In the past, they have also worked with Ten Thousand Villages, a founding member of the World Fair Trade Organization, to organize a Fair Trade Fair. At the Fair Trade Fair, students had the opportunity to purchase handmade items from around the world with the knowledge that the artisans were being paid a fair wage for their labor.

The BLC is also focused on bringing sweatshop-free apparel to Brandeis. In 2006 the BLC successfully lobbied the University to endorse the Designated Supplier Program, a standard proposed by the Worker Rights Consortium to ensure that Brandeis apparel was manufactured in safe and fair working conditions, according to an April 4, 2006 issue of the Justice. Brandeis is one of 188 American colleges and universities affiliated with the Worker's Rights Consortium, according to workersrights.org. Now, all apparel with the Brandeis logo is DSP.

Additionally, the BLC was pleased to see that the bookstore initiated the sale of Alta Gracia apparel, a line of clothing manufactured at a "living wage" factory in the Dominican Republic. Alta Gracia employees receive enough money to provide their families with adequate food, shelter and education. In summer 2010, BLC worked with the Brandeis bookstore manager to display the items more prominently.

The BLC has experienced many successes, but "communication is difficult. . There is no clear-cut way to get through and make change," Korn says.

Korn hopes the University will consider hiring a custodial supervisor with the abilty to speak Spanish in order to make it easier for the custodial staff to communicate with their supervisors.

You can be an advocate for workers' rights in your everyday life. "Be conscious of your purchasest-where they are coming from and how they are made," Weatherby suggests.

"If you are more passionate [about these issues], you should join the BLC," Pellerito says.