A Google representative announced on Thursday that the internet company had fired 28 workers as a result of a disruptive sit-down protest over its contract with the Israeli government.
Google Fires 28 Employees
The organization “No Tech for Apartheid,” which has long fought “Project Nimbus,” Google and Amazon’s joint $1.2 billion deal to supply cloud services to the Israeli government, organized the demonstration on Tuesday.
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An advocacy organization on X, formerly Twitter, posted a video of the demonstration showing police detaining Google employees in the Sunnyvale, California, office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian.
The advocacy group said that for ten hours, Kurian’s office was occupied.
In reference to allegations concerning Israel’s attacks on Gaza, workers carried placards that read, among other things, “Googlers against Genocide.”
Protesters “No Tech for Apartheid,” who also staged demonstrations in New York and Seattle, cited a Time magazine article from April 12 detailing a draft deal in which Google proposed to charge the Israeli Ministry of Defense over $1 million for consultancy services.
A Google representative stated that while a “small number” of workers “disrupted” a few Google facilities, the protests are “part of a longstanding campaign by a group of organizations and people who largely don’t work at Google.”
Law enforcement was called in to remove them to protect office safety after they repeatedly refused demands to leave, according to a Google spokeswoman. We’ll keep investigating and take appropriate action. To date, we have completed individual investigations that have led to the loss of employment for 28 workers.
According to a Google representative, Google offers cloud computing services to “many” governments, including Israel.
The work being done is not targeted at highly confidential, categorized, or military applications relevant to armaments or intelligence products and services,” a spokesperson for Google stated.
