A Negative Review May Be Protected Activity Under U.S. Employment Law

Yelp, Inc. is more accustomed to being on the giving—rather than the receiving—end of a negative review. That changed recently when a Yelp customer service employee, Talia Ben-Ora, posted an open letter to Yelp's CEO on her blog, lamenting her daily struggle to survive in the Bay Area on low pay. Ben-Ora spent much of the letter discussing wages, benefits, and the financial challenges faced by her co-workers:

Every single one of my co-workers is struggling. They're taking side jobs, they're living at home.... Another wrote on those neat whiteboards we've got on every floor begging for help because he was bound to be homeless in two weeks.... Let's talk about those benefits, though. They're great. Except the copays.... Twenty bucks each is pretty neat, if spending twenty dollars didn't determine whether or not you could afford to get to work the next week.