The Christmas table guests inside the restaurant have just frozen in herring, potatoes and parsley. Fredrika tries to balance the clean scraped plates she picked from the tables, but suddenly she freezes. A man grabs her ass and presses her face against her stomach and waist.

- I got angry, but first and foremost shocked. It came so unexpectedly. Why do you think I want a hug when I do my job ?, Fredrika tells SVT News.

She's not alone. In December, many people in the hotel and restaurant industry meet a large number of, often alcohol-affected, guests who in some cases behave badly on staff. The Nordic trade unions in the industry, NU HRCT, have since 2017 joined together in a campaign - #notonthemenu - to highlight the problem of harassing bar guests and visitors during Christmas dinner times.

Nearly 400 testify about sexual harassment

But it is not just at Christmas tables that the staff experience discomfort.

In a survey conducted by SVT News together with the hotel and restaurant union (HRF), 389 people out of 1076 responding HRF members say that they have been subjected to sexual harassment by guests at least once in the past year. A clear majority, 337, are women. Many of them are under the age of 30 and work with serving or standing at the bar. Both physical and verbal harassment are mentioned among the testimonies.

"A man said he would skip the bar and rape me," a woman in the survey says.

Nearly 170 people who responded to the survey said they had been subjected to sexual harassment while working at Christmas parties or Christmas parties. Stock Photography. Photo: Kallestad, Gorm / NTB Scanpix / TT

Per Persson, contract secretary at HRF, says the answers are in line with the union's view of the vulnerability in the industry.

- I'm still shocked at the volume. It's terrible if people go to work and expect to be exposed, says Per Persson, HRF's contract secretary.

The union wants to tighten the rules so that harassment by customers and visitors is equated with the vulnerability of a manager or colleague.

- The employer must act in the same way. It can be about turning off guests, or agreeing on how to do when harassment occurs.

Visita: "A social problem"

The trade and employers' organization Visita believes that the Working Environment Act is sufficiently clear with regard to the employer's responsibility.

- In the end, it is a crime if it is harassment of a certain nature. Then it should be reported to the police, says Antje Dedering, negotiating manager.

She emphasizes that sexual harassment is "totally unacceptable" and no dispute between Visita and HRF.

- But it is important to talk about it as a societal problem based on old structures, which we all have an obligation to change.