Google fires 28 employees after sit-in protest over Israel cloud contract

1 week ago

Google fired 28 labor successful relationship pinch sit-in protests by labor astatine 2 of its offices this week, according to an soul memo obtained by The Verge. The firings travel after 9 labor were suspended and past arrested successful New York and California connected Tuesday.

The fired labor were progressive successful protesting a Google statement for Project Nimbus, a $1.2 cardinal Israeli authorities unreality statement that Amazon is besides progressive in. Some of them occupied nan agency of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian until they were forcibly removed by rule enforcement. Last month, Google fired another worker for protesting nan statement during a institution position successful Israel.

In a memo sent to each labor connected Wednesday, Chris Rackow, Google’s caput of world security, said that “behavior for illustration this has nary spot successful our workplace and we will not tolerate it.” You tin publication nan afloat memo astatine nan bottommost of this story.

He besides warned that nan institution would return much action if needed: “The overwhelming mostly of our labor do nan correct thing. If you’re 1 of nan fewer who are tempted to deliberation we’re going to place behaviour that violates our policies, deliberation again. The institution takes this highly seriously, and we will proceed to use our longstanding policies to return action against disruptive behaviour — up to and including termination.”

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In a consequence statement, nan “No Tech for Apartheid” group down nan protests called Google’s firings a “flagrant enactment of retaliation.”

“In nan 3 years that we person been organizing against Project Nimbus, we person yet to perceive from a azygous executive astir our concerns,” nan group wrote successful a station connected Medium. “Google workers person nan correct to peacefully protestation astir position and conditions of our labor. These firings were intelligibly retaliatory.”

You tin publication Rackow’s afloat memo below:

Serious consequences for disruptive behavior

Googlers,

You whitethorn person seen reports of protests astatine immoderate of our offices yesterday. Unfortunately, a number of labor brought nan arena into our buildings successful New York and Sunnyvale. They took complete agency spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded nan activity of different Googlers. Their behaviour was unacceptable, highly disruptive, and made coworkers consciousness threatened. We placed labor progressive nether investigation and trim their entree to our systems. Those who refused to time off were arrested by rule enforcement and removed from our offices.

Following investigation, coming we terminated nan employment of twenty-eight labor recovered to beryllium involved. We will proceed to analyse and return action arsenic needed.

Behavior for illustration this has nary spot successful our workplace and we will not tolerate it. It intelligibly violates aggregate policies that each labor must adhere to — including our Code of Conduct and Policy connected Harassment, Discrimination, Retaliation, Standards of Conduct, and Workplace Concerns.

We are a spot of business and each Googler is expected to publication our policies and use them to really they behaviour themselves and pass successful our workplace. The overwhelming mostly of our labor do nan correct thing. If you’re 1 of nan fewer who are tempted to deliberation we’re going to place behaviour that violates our policies, deliberation again. The institution takes this highly seriously, and we will proceed to use our longstanding policies to return action against disruptive behaviour — up to and including termination.

You should expect to perceive much from leaders astir standards of behaviour and sermon successful nan workplace.