Google has fired 28 of its employees who were protesting against Google's contract with the Israeli government. These employees were opposing “Project Nimbus”, which is a USD 1.2 billion joint contract with Amazon to provide the Israeli government with AI and cloud services. This came after the arrest and suspension of nine employees on April 16, as well as a previous firing related to the same project last month.
The protests were held by the No Tech for Apartheid organization across several Google offices in New York City, Seattle, and Sunnyvale, California. The protesters in New York and California staged a sit-in that lasted for nearly 10 hours, while others documented the event, including through a Twitch livestream.
In an internal memo to employees, the company said that behaviour like this “has no place in our workplace, and we will not tolerate it.”
“The overwhelming majority of our employees do the right thing. If you’re one of the few who are tempted to think we’re going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again,” Google told the staff.
“The company takes this extremely seriously, and we will continue to apply our longstanding policies to take action against disruptive behaviour -- up to and including termination.”
The group behind the protests called Google’s move a “flagrant act of retaliation.”
“Google workers have the right to peacefully protest about the terms and conditions of our labour. These firings were clearly retaliatory,” said the group called “No Tech for Apartheid.”
The company said that following an investigation, “we terminated the employment of twenty-eight employees found to be involved. We will continue to investigate and take action as needed.”
Meanwhile, Google may lay off employees after announcing major restructuring plans, according to a memo sent by the company's CFO, Ruth Porat.
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Inputs from IANS
