Google Fires 50 Employees Amid Protests Over Israel Cloud Deal, Organizers Report
Google has terminated the employment of an additional 20 workers, following protests last week over the company’s cloud-computing contract with the Israeli government, according to the organizers behind the demonstrations. This brings the total number of employees fired to 50.
The group known as No Tech for Apartheid, which orchestrated the protest at Google offices last Tuesday, released a statement on Monday evening, claiming that some of the terminated workers were merely “non-participating bystanders” during the sit-in protests at Google’s New York and Sunnyvale, California offices, and were not directly involved in the activism.
According to a Google spokesperson, the terminations were a result of an investigation into the “physical disruption inside our buildings on April 16.” The spokesperson emphasized that each employee fired was definitively involved in disruptive activity.
However, the worker group alleges that not all those fired were engaged in disruptive behaviour during the protests. They criticized Google’s actions as “an aggressive and desperate act of retaliation” against the employees.
The No Tech for Apartheid group vowed to persist in their workplace activism, asserting their commitment to continue fighting against what they see as unjust business practices.
The protests emerged in response to Google’s cloud-computing deal with the Israeli government, amidst ongoing conflicts in the region. The demonstrations reflect broader societal divisions concerning US support for Israel, which have sparked protests across various sectors of American society.
Last week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai issued a company-wide memo urging employees to refrain from engaging in political debates or disruptive behaviour in the workplace, emphasizing Google’s focus on business matters.
The fallout from the protests underscores the challenges companies face in navigating politically charged issues within their workforce while balancing corporate interests and societal concerns.
