A Yelp employee was recently fired from her position when she posted in Medium a fiery "open letter" to the company CEO complaining about her low pay. Very soon though, Talia Ben-Ora, the letter writer, was out on the street, with no work at all.
Not before her blog at the Medium, a publishing platform became viral on the internet. Immediately, a debate sprung out from the snarky missive about San Francisco's insane cost of living and her low living wage which is not of much help. Some even questioned if Ben-Ora is just a self-entitled millennial brat.
Due to the incident, a question started begging every employee's mind: "Can you expect your job to be safe when you complain about your boss?"
But the action of Jeremy Stoppleman, Yelp CEO, after the publishing of the open letter seems to belie any part in Ben-Ora's expulsion from her job. In a previous report, Stoppleman decried and admitted that the cost of living in San Francisco is 'far too high.'
As his response to the fiery open letter of his former employee, the Yelp CEO then called for the city to lower its cost of housing. However, Jane's blog was perfectly clear in indicting her low salary as a major part of her financial difficulties and not solely because of San Francisco's high living costs.
She explicitly wrote in her letter that she could barely afford groceries on a salary of $733.24 every two weeks, considering that her rent is a huge $1,245 per month.
"Every single one of my coworkers is struggling. They're taking side jobs, they're living at home," wrote Jane, indicating that she was not the only Yelp employee that is suffering this plight.
But the Stoppleman also tweeted that Ben-Ora's letter had nothing to do with her firing. Yelp later informed media outlets that the company is not in the habit of commenting on its employees' personal matters. The company even said that her letter was "an important example of free speech."
