Google fired over two dozen employees on Wednesday for protesting its $1.2 billion contract with Israel by staging sit-ins inside several of the technology company’s offices the day before.
The termination of 28 employees was revealed in a memo from Google vice president of global security Chris Rackow after the company conducted an internal investigation.
“They took over office spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers,” Rackow wrote in a memo obtained by the New York Post. “Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made co-workers feel threatened.”
On Tuesday, pro-Palestinian protesters occupied offices in New York, California, and Washington demanding that Google cancel Project Nimbus, a joint contract with Amazon that provides cloud-computing and artificial-intelligence services to the Israeli government and military. Notably, one of the occupied offices belonged to Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian; his office is based in Sunnyvale, Calif. Police arrested nine protesters across the country after the coordinated sit-in lasted ten hours.
It was unclear if the nine detained demonstrators were among those who were fired.
“Behavior like this has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it. It clearly violates multiple policies that all employees must adhere to – including our Code of Conduct and Policy on Harassment, Discrimination, Retaliation, Standards of Conduct, and Workplace Concerns,” Rackow said.
The companywide memo adds that Google “takes this extremely seriously” and will continue enforcing its “longstanding policies to take action against disruptive behavior – up to and including termination.”
Tuesday’s protests were organized by a group of tech workers known as No Tech for Apartheid, which boasts over 200 members. Though it has protested against Project Nimbus since the contract was announced three years ago, the group’s criticisms of the Google-Amazon contract with Israel have ratcheted up since October 7.
No Tech for Apartheid released a statement condemning the 28 firings.
“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,” the statement reads. “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.”
While a Google spokesperson said the protest involved people who “largely” do not work at the company, No Tech for Apartheid said Google’s claim is “untrue” and “insulting,” suggesting the employees who were arrested or fired all worked for Google.
The group also blasted Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Kurian as “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 adds.
Google and Amazon workers have previously rebuked the Nimbus contract by penning an anonymous Guardian op-ed in October 2021. In the article, they wrote that their employers’ pursuits of “contracts with institutions like the US Department of Defense, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), and state and local police departments” are “part of a disturbing pattern of militarization, lack of transparency and avoidance of oversight.”