Google Fired Workers Protesting Over Cloud Contract Deal With Israel

Google immediately terminated 28 employees who participated in a 10-hour sit-in protest at the company’s offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California. The participants expressed their strong disapproval of the company’s business ties with the government of Israel.

Termination for Protest Participants

According to the New York Post, some pro-Palestinian Google employees marched and took up the office of a top executive on Tuesday this week. In a memo sent to staff, Chris Rackow, Google’s vice president of global security, said those employees were fired on Wednesday, April 17, after an internal probe.

Protests were staged against Google over labor conditions and its agreement to provide the Israeli government with cloud computing and artificial intelligence services. The fired staffers were said to have been part of the protesters who occupied the 10th floor of the company’s offices.

Google Investigated the Incident

It was mentioned that the terminated employees are affiliated with the “No Tech For Apartheid” group, which has been openly criticizing how Google responds to the Israel-Hamas war. The group also posted videos and livestreams of their protests against the tech firm on X, formerly Twitter.

In any case, Google launched a probe into Tuesday’s incident and determined that the protesters should be fired. In the memo, Rackow explained, “They took over office spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers. Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made co-workers feel threatened.”

He added, “Behavior like this has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it.” Rackow said their action violated multiple policies that all Google staff must adhere to.

Meanwhile, The New York Times reported that tensions were already brewing between Google and activist employees years before the terminations due to the $1.2 billion Project Nimbus, in which Google and Amazon agreed to provide cloud services to Israel.

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