For many in the restaurant industry, sexual harassment has long been seen as just "part of the job.” However, in a groundbreaking nationwide strike protesting sexual harassment, McDonald’s workers plan to walk out of work on Tuesday, September 18 to confront what they called the company’s failure to adequately respond to complaints of widespread sexual harassment, according to the Associated Press, showing that sexual harassment isn't acceptable anywhere or anytime.

The #MeToo McDonald’s walkout was created by members of local Fight for $15 Women’s Committees, former after the initial EEOC charges in May, and was approved as a nationwide walk out in early September. The workers will go on strike across the country during the lunchtime rush in the following 10 cities: Chicago, Durham, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Orlando, San Francisco and St. Louis. In addition to workers participating in the strike, leaders of national women’s groups will join them in calling for McDonald’s to take stronger measures to prevent sexual harassment and protect its employees.

The group alleges that the company "has failed to address groping, lewd comments, propositions for sex and other illegal behavior in its stores," according to a press release on the strike. The striking workers demand McDonald’s form a committee to address sexual harassment, with the cohort primarily being comprised of workers, representatives from corporate and franchise stores, and leaders of national women’s groups, the release says. The committee would be responsible for strategizing and executing regulations and actions that would ensure that nobody who works for McDonald’s experiences sexual harassment on the job.

Considering that the #MeToo movement in it's current form has consistently focused on public figures and celebrities as the shapers of the narrative surrounding sexual harassment, the McDonald’s worker strike will seemingly give space to some of the most vulnerable populations in the United States.

“It’s sad that we have to walk off the job in order to be treated with respect at McDonald’s, but we’re not going to stay quiet while the company ignores the harassment we’re facing,” said Tanya Harrell, a McDonald’s worker from New Orleans who plans to strike next week, according to a release. Teen Vogue reached out to McDonald's regarding her allegations. “McDonald’s has a responsibility to provide a safe place to work, and we’re going to keep speaking out until the company hears our calls for change.”

Harrell, who joined her fellow workers in the Fight for $15, and with others, filed 10 charges alleging widespread sexual harassment within the corporate giant through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) with support from the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund. According to the release, she alleges that the sexual harassment she experienced was often ignored or met with retaliation and consequences including termination.

In an open letter to McDonald’s in May, which inspired the national strike, almost 20 leading national women’s groups joined the Fight for $15 in the demand that the company address sexual harassment. The letter ran in Crain’s Chicago, and stated that McDonald’s faces the choice of putting in the work to combat sexual harassment in its stores or lose customers with a conscience who will protest and give up on the brand. But McDonald's is far from the only restaurant being called out for alleged sexual harassment problems.

A 2016 survey by Hart Research Associates found that in total, forty percent of female fast-food workers will experience unwanted sexual behavior while at work. This specific survey also found that 42% of those women who reported experiencing unwanted advances also feel pressured or forced to accept it because they can’t afford to lose their jobs. For those who depend on tips to bolster their wage (which under federal law can be as little as $2.13 an hour for tipped workers), sexual harassment is also reportedly widespread. A report called “Take Us Off the Menu” from the Restaurant Opportunities Center United (ROCU) released in May of 2018 found that those who depend on earning tips face power imbalance with “significant negative ramifications,” including sexual harassment and assault. With nearly 1 out of 3 Americans entering the workforce through the restaurant industry, and approximately half of Americans working in the industry at some point in their life according to ROCU, that leaves room for many to potentially learn that sexual harassment and abuse are acceptable workplace behavior and also works to establish harassment or abuse as an acceptable part of the workplace, according to the report — women who had previously worked as tipped workers were 1.6 times as likely to accept inappropriate behaviors in the workplace as women who were currently employed as tipped workers.