On February 17, Washington Post reporter Chico Harlan published an article on what happens to communities after a small minimum wage hike. Harlan focused his piece on Shanna Tippen, a 43-year-old mother of two who earned the minimum wage at a Days Inn and Suites in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Tippen explained how difficult it is to make ends meet since her two kids, ages 24 and 21, are unemployed and her grandchild goes through more than 100 diapers a week. The 25-cent minimum wage hike would allow her to purchase higher quality diapers for the child.

At least, that was Tippen's hope. Harlan reported Monday that Tippen had been fired from her job for speaking to the Post. She’s now looking for a new job and living off a tax refund, which, Harlan reports, “won’t last past March.” If that all sounds bad, the details of Tippen’s firing are much worse—and provide an important lesson for policymakers to protect low-income workers.

It wasn’t even Tippen’s idea to speak to a reporter. Her boss, hotel manager Herry Patel, had told Harlan to interview her. “Patel introduced Tippen to me,” Harlan wrote in his follow-up piece. “During a trip to Pine Bluff, Ark., in mid-January, I went to numerous businesses across town and found Patel in the hotel lobby and introduced myself. There, I interviewed him several minutes. Patel then suggested I speak with Tippen, who was cleaning up the continental breakfast bar. I interviewed her during her work shift, during a slow afternoon as she manned the front desk.” In the interview, Tippen didn’t criticize the Days Inn or Patel’s management style. Everything she said was uncontroversial.

The same can't be said for Patel, the hotel manager. “[The referendum] was bad,” he said. “Bad for Arkansas. Everybody wants free money in Pine Bluff.” That’s not exactly a reputation-destroying comment, but Patel apparently was upset enough by its inclusion in the piece to call “the Post to express frustration that he had been quoted giving his opinion about the minimum wage hike.”

Tippen's story is sad and infuriating, like so many other minimum wage workers who have faced unfair treatment by their employers. Jimmy John’s, for instance, required their employees to sign non-compete clauses. On Monday, Amazon removed a requirement that part-time and temporary workers sign non-compete clauses.