Michael Schmidt, a member of Cozen O'Connor's Labor & Employment department, discusses the recent Yelp case in HR Magazine. The firing earlier this year of a Yelp employee after she criticized her organization's CEO in a blog post raises questions of whether freedom of speech should have protected the worker from being discharged. Determining whether federal law protects a worker from being fired if she publicly criticizes her employer can be tricky. According to Michael, a termination based on an employee's criticism of her employer is more likely to be seen as problematic under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) if: 1) The employee is engaging in speech collectively with co-workers or with the intent of getting other employees involved. 2) The speech is related to the terms and conditions of the person's work or work-place environment. 3) The remarks are not so disloyal, reckless or malicious that they are deemed to fall outside the scope of the NLRA's protections.