Google fired over two dozen staff Wednesday night. The company says the 28 employees participated in an office sit-in protest this week over the tech giant’s role in Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud contract between Google, Amazon, and Israel’s government and military.Google’s VP of Global Security Chris Rackow sent a message to all Google staff Wednesday, calling the firings “serious consequences for disruptive behavior.””They took over office spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers,” Rackow said of the protestors in a copy of the memo obtained by The Verge. “Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made coworkers feel threatened.” Google quickly launched an investigation into the protests that occurred at its offices in Sunnyvale, California and New York City. On Wednesday, nine of the protestors had been arrested following the demonstrations because they didn’t leave Google’s offices when asked, according to the company.”Behavior like this has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it,” Rackow continued. “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.”But the protestors, who have organized under the group name No Tech for Apartheid, allege that Google is a “war profiteer” and that the firings are a “flagrant act of retaliation.””Google values its $1.2 billion contract with the genocidal Israeli government and military more than its own workers,” the group wrote on a Medium post in response to the firings. “In the three years that we have been organizing against Project Nimbus, we have yet to hear from a single executive about our concerns. Google workers have the right to peacefully protest about terms and conditions of our labor.”A Google representative tells PCMag that the protests “were part of a longstanding campaign by a group of organizations and people who largely don’t work at Google.””A small number of employee protesters entered and disrupted a few of our locations,” the representative said in a statement to PCMag. “Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and completely unacceptable behavior. After refusing multiple requests to leave the premises, law enforcement was engaged to remove them to ensure office safety,” the rep continued.The protest group alleges that Google fired the 28 employees “indiscriminately” and let go even staff who didn’t participate in the sit-in protests, identifying workers “through a dragnet of in-office surveillance.”Back in November, the group accused Google of not responding to anti-Palestinian remarks shared internally, claiming that Google managers “stood idly by” when Palestinians were dehumanized on official work forums. Managers also called staff “sick” and a “lost cause” for caring about Gaza’s residents, according to the group. Google did not respond to PCMag’s request for comment on these incidents or the accusations of surveillance.Google’s response did include a statement about Project Nimbus, however. “Google Cloud supports numerous governments around the world in countries where we operate, including the Israeli government, with our generally available cloud computing services,” the Google rep says.
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“We have been very clear that the Nimbus contract is for workloads running on our commercial cloud by Israeli government ministries, who agree to comply with our Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy,” the Google rep continues in a statement to PCMag. “This work is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.”Rackow’s memo states that Google will continue to “take action,” including firing staff, if they behave in ways Google believes violates its policies. “If you’re one of the few who are tempted to think we’re going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again. The company takes this extremely seriously, and we will continue to apply our longstanding policies to take action against disruptive behavior—up to and including termination,” Rackow wrote.Last month, Google also fired an employee who protested the cloud contract during a Google Israel executive’s presentation. In 2022, the LA Times reported that one Google employee was given an ultimatum when she protested the Israel contract and was told to either move to Google’s Brazil office—or lose her job.Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include comments from Google.
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