The employees were ousted after staging sit-ins at the company’s offices
Google employees participate in a sit-in. © No Tech for Apartheid / Social media
Google has fired 28 workers who protested against the company’s ties with the Israeli government amid the continuing war in Gaza. The Silicon Valley-based tech giant claimed that defiant employees were disrupting the normal work process.
“Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and completely unacceptable behavior,” Google spokesperson said in a statement to the media on Wednesday. “After refusing multiple requests to leave the premises, law enforcement was engaged to remove them to ensure office safety.”
According to tech publication the Verge, a group of employees occupied the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian in Sunnyvale, California on Tuesday, while another group staged a nearly eight-hour sit-in in the common area of the company’s office in New York. Disgruntled workers also demonstrated outside several Google campuses.
The activist group behind the demonstrations – No Tech for Apartheid – described the firings as illegal and “retaliatory.” They claimed that the sit-ins “did not damage property or threaten other workers,” and had “received an overwhelmingly positive response and shows of support” from colleagues.
@GOOGLE WORKER COAST TO COAST SIT IN UPDATE HOUR 3— Workers remain steadfast in their commitment to remain inside @googlecloud CEO thomas kurian’s office and google HQ NYC until they drop Project Nimbus or are arrested SUPPORT WORKERS: https://t.co/7pKYAvy6Rmpic.twitter.com/7rb1kgi0hk
— No Tech For Apartheid (@NoTechApartheid) April 16, 2024
Some employees have been publicly speaking out since 2021 against Project Nimbus, a large cloud computing contract Google and Amazon received from the Israeli government. Time magazine reported this month that Israel’s Defense Ministry has a security entry point to Google Cloud and its AI services.
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
The Israeli military’s ties with big tech have faced additional scrutiny after +972 Magazine and news website Local Call cited intelligence sources in early April as saying that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) use a secret AI program called Lavender to identify human targets during its ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza. Although the IDF stated that such programs are “merely tools for analysis” and that it does not rely on AI to pick targets for strikes, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply troubled” by the report.
READ MORE: Israel using AI to pick targets in Gaza – report
Multiple human rights groups are accusing the IDF of indiscriminately killing civilians in Gaza, where nearly 34,000 Palestinians have died since October 7, according to local authorities. The Israeli army admitted to accidentally killing seven foreign humanitarian workers during April 1 drone strikes on an aid convoy. The IDF cited misidentification and other errors as causes of the tragedy and said that it had dismissed two senior officers involved in the strikes.
