Google has fired 28 employees for their involvement in a 10-hour sit-in at two of the tech giant’s offices in the US, protesting the company’s ties with Israel.
The termination comes one day after nine Google workers were arrested on Tuesday night, following a sit-in at the company’s offices in New York and California. This included a protest in the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian’s office.
The protests were led by No Tech for Apartheid, a movement of tech workers demanding Amazon and Google drop Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud contract with Israel.
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“This evening, Google indiscriminately fired over two dozen workers, including those among us who did not directly participate in yesterday’s historic, bicoastal 10-hour sit-in protests,” No Tech for Apartheid said in a statement.
“This flagrant act of retaliation is a clear indication that Google values its $1.2 billion contract with the genocidal Israeli government and military more than its own workers.”
The statement said that in the three years “that we have been organizing against Project Nimbus, we have yet to hear from a single executive about our concerns.”
Right to Protest
Chris Rackow, Google’s head of global security, emphasized the company’s zero-tolerance policy towards the behavior of the protesters in a memo sent to all employees that also circulated on social media.
“Behavior like this has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it,” the memo said.
“Following investigation, today we terminated the employment of twenty-eight employees found to be involved. We will continue to investigate and take action as needed,” it added.
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“Google workers have the right to peacefully protest about terms and conditions of our labor. These firings were clearly retaliatory,” No Tech for Apartheid said.
In its statement, the group added that Google claims that protesters “defaced property” and “physically impeded the work of other Googlers.”
“This excuse to avoid confronting us and our concerns directly, and attempt to justify its illegal, retaliatory firings, is a lie,” the statement further said. “Even the workers who were participating in a peaceful sit-in and refusing to leave did not damage property or threaten other workers. Instead they received an overwhelmingly positive response and shows of support.”
BREAKING— @google also orders for arrest of of its own workers in SUNNYVALE who sat in for 10 hours at @googlecloud CEO @thomasortk’s personal office, demanding google cut Project Nimbus, the company’s $1.2 billion contract with Israel.
arrests were caught on our livestream pic.twitter.com/pgLe4gkybY
— No Tech For Apartheid (@NoTechApartheid) April 17, 2024
Military Data
“Sundar Pichai and Thomas Kurian are genocide profiteers. We cannot comprehend how these men are able to sleep at night while their tech has enabled 100,000 Palestinians killed, reported missing, or wounded in the last six months of Israel’s genocide — and counting,” the statement further said.
The firings, which occurred just hours after the arrests of nine employees, have stirred a wave of controversy within the company and beyond.
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The Nimbus project reportedly includes a cloud and machine learning system that enables data storage, collection, analysis, motif and feature identification from data, and prediction of potential data and motifs.
A $1.2 billion contract for the project was signed in April 2021 between Israel and Google and Amazon.
‘Accountability’
Israel announced in April 2021 that Google and Amazon won the massive state tender, allowing Israel to establish its local cloud storage server centers.
The system can collect all data sources provided by Israel and its military, including databases, resources, and even live observation sources such as street and drone cameras.
Critics argue that the project could help Israel continue its apartheid-like system of oppression, domination, and segregation of the Palestinian people.
No Tech for Apartheid further said Google is “terrified of workers coming together and calling for accountability and transparency from our bosses.”
The group vowed it would “continue organizing until the company drops Project Nimbus and stops powering this genocide.”
(PC, Anadolu)
