Twenty-eight Google employees were fired after they participated in various protests against the technology giant's headquarters in New York, California, and Seattle over a multimillion-dollar $1.2 billion contract that the company signed with the Israeli government and Army.
The New York Post exclusively obtained an internal memo where the company explained the reasons for the dismissal, stating that the employees involved in the protest violated Google's internal rules, causing their co-workers to feel threatened.
"You may have seen reports of protests at some of our offices yesterday. Unfortunately, a number of employees brought the event into our buildings in New York and Sunnyvale," begins the memo written by Google's vice president of global security, Chris Rackow.
“They took over office spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers. Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made co-workers feel threatened. We placed employees involved under investigation and cut their access to our systems. Those who refused to leave were arrested by law enforcement and removed from our offices.”
The company subsequently announced the layoffs and said they would continue to investigate and take appropriate action.
"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," Rankow stated.
The protest against Google headquarters was organized by the anti-Israel group No Tech For Apartheid, which opposed a "Project Nimbus" contract in which Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services provide cloud computing and artificial intelligence services for the Israeli state.
The 28 Google employees were affiliated with the group, which has been critical of the Israeli government for its war against Hamas following the October 7 terrorist attacks.
The laid-off workers attacked Google in a statement shared by No Tech For Apartheid spokesperson Jane Chung.
"This evening, Google indiscriminately fired 28 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 — the ones who create real value for executives and shareholders."
In the statement, the workers called Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, and Thomas Kurian, CEO of the cloud in question, "genocide profiteers," referring to the collateral victims left by the Israeli retaliation in Gaza.
The names of the fired employees have not yet been released, nor has it been confirmed whether the nine employees arrested earlier for breaking and entering in California and New York were among the 28 employees affected.
