Google announced on Thursday that it had terminated 28 employees who participated in protests against the company’s cloud contract with the Israeli government. Alphabet’s division stated that a small group of protesting employees had broken into unspecified offices and disrupted operations.
The company’s statement mentioned that interfering with the work of other employees or blocking access to facilities was a clear violation of policies and unacceptable behavior. Google also closed the investigation that led to the layoffs and stated that further investigations and actions would be taken as needed.
Employees from the No Technology for Apartheid movement expressed their discontent on Medium, calling the layoffs “blatant retaliation.” They mentioned that even those who were not directly involved in the protests were among those fired. The statement emphasized that Google employees have the right to peaceful protests about their working conditions.
Protesters believed that Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract with Google and Amazon.com, would assist the Israeli government in developing military tools. Google rebutted by stating that the contract was not meant for highly sensitive or military-related workloads.
This is not the first time Google has faced employee protests. In 2018, staff successfully convinced the company to halt Project Maven, a contract with the U.S. military for analyzing drone imagery.
Source: www.theguardian.com
