Google fired over two dozen employees for holding sit-in protests over the company’s $1.2 billion contract with Israel.
Protesters occupied multiple offices in Seattle, New York and California, with signs that read “No more genocide for profit” and demanded that the company end its contract with the Israeli government for cloud and data services. Nine employees were arrested on Tuesday after sitting for hours in Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian’s office and the company announced Wednesday that 28 employees had been fired over the protests, according to NBC News.
“A small number of employee protesters entered and disrupted a few of our locations. Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and completely unacceptable behavior,” Google told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement. “After refusing multiple requests to leave the premises, law enforcement was engaged to remove them to ensure office safety. We have so far concluded individual investigations that resulted in the termination of employment for 28 employees, and will continue to investigate and take action as needed.”
The protest was organized by the group No Tech for Apartheid, who claimed that the firing was an attempt to ignore the protesters’ “concerns,” according to NBC News.
“This excuse to avoid confronting us and our concerns directly, and attempt to justify its illegal, retaliatory firings, is a lie,” the group said in a statement.
The company’s contract with Israel, also known as Project Nimbus, allows the Israeli government to access cloud and artificial intelligence services for defense purposes as part of a “multi-year, large-scale flagship project” started in 2019 according to Israel’s Government Procurement Administration.
No Tech for Apartheid did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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