TULSA, Okla. — The nation’s estimated 150,000 gas station bathrooms formally unionized Tuesday under the newly chartered International Brotherhood of Roadside Restrooms, presenting management with a list of demands led by a single request: that the key be attached to something smaller than a cinder block.

“No restroom should be guarded by a hubcap, a wrench, or a section of lead pipe,” said bargaining committee chair Unit 2, a single-occupancy men’s room behind a Phillips-adjacent fuel stop off Interstate 44. “We are not asking for a lanyard. We are asking for a keychain, in the way that other rooms have keychains.”

The committee’s 14-point proposal also calls for functioning door locks, a soap dispenser containing soap, and a second paper towel. It also asks that the hand dryer be reclassified from “aspirational” to “operational.” Members have further requested that the light be allowed to stay on for longer than the 40 seconds it currently manages after a customer’s last movement.

Management has resisted. The National Council of Petroleum Retail Proprietors said in a statement that the cinder block is “a time-honored security measure” and that the industry has “never once lost a key to a customer who was physically unable to leave with it.”

“If we attach the key to a spoon, people will take the spoon,” said council spokesman Dale Ostrowski-Pruitt, who holds the title of Vice President of Restroom Access Deterrence. “If we attach it to a small, reasonable object, people will consider that a gift.”

Labor experts say the dispute has been building for decades. Dr. Marguerite Fallowfield-Oyelaran, Senior Fellow in Highway Sanitation Labor Relations at the Institute for Rest Stop Studies at Ottumwa Community College, said the grievances are legitimate.

“These facilities have worked unsupervised, around the clock, in conditions most workers would call hostile,” she said. “One bathroom in Barstow has not been mentioned by name in a customer review since 2011, only ‘that place.’ That is not recognition. That is erasure.”

“We are not asking for a lanyard. We are asking for a keychain, in the way that other rooms have keychains.”

Union leaders say the walkout will begin the next time any customer approaches a cashier and says, “Hey, can I get the bathroom key?” At that moment, every restroom in the country will lock itself from the inside and decline to open until further notice. Motorists are advised to plan ahead.

The cashier, reached for comment, said he had not been informed of the strike and was currently trying to find the key, which he believed was “under the thing, by the other thing.” He then handed over a ring holding a brake rotor, three loose keys, and a small plastic Santa. “It’s one of those,” he said.

Talks resume Thursday at a neutral location, the only one in the county with a working hand dryer. Negotiators from both sides have agreed to meet there but have not agreed on who will hold the door.

The Brotherhood says it remains open to compromise, including a possible phase-in in which the cinder block is replaced first by a brick, then by a smaller brick, and eventually by a key. Management called the timeline “aggressive.”