Google on Wednesday fired 28 employees who took part in protests against Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud contract with the Israeli government that also includes Amazon.
Employees of both companies argue that the deal gives Israel's security services access to advanced technology that could help kill or harm Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. The Intercept and Time reported that Project Nimbus provides services that can be stolen by the Israel Defense Forces.
The 28 layoffs Google has confirmed come after nine employees who staged sit-in protests at Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian's office in Sunnyvale, California, and the company's offices in New York were detained by police late Tuesday. It happened a few hours later. All nine of these workers, along with 19 other protesters, were fired.
Google spokeswoman Anna Kowalczyk said in a statement that following an internal investigation that found the employees guilty of “physically interfering with the work of other employees and preventing access to our facilities.” He said he was fired. She added: “After refusing multiple requests to leave, law enforcement worked to remove them to ensure the security of the office.” She said the contract with Nimbus was “not geared toward” classified or military work.
Tuesday's action against Project Nimbus came as the Palestinian death toll from IDF attacks on Hamas in the Gaza Strip was reported to have reached more than 34,000. The military offensive began after Hamas killed about 1,100 Israelis on October 7.
The sit-in at Google was accompanied by more than 100 protesters, including many Google employees, outside the company's offices in New York, Sunnyvale, and Seattle. Google's Kowalczyk characterized employee participation as “minority.”
Google's workforce is made up of the majority of its parent company Alphabet's employees, with a reported number of over 180,000 employees as of the end of 2023. Several protesters at Google's New York office told WIRED that there is support within the company beyond those who directly participated in Tuesday's protests.
Jane Chan, a spokeswoman for No Tech for Apartheid, a coalition of technology workers and the Muslim- and Jewish-led activist group MPower Change and Jewish Voice for Peace, which organized the protest. said some of the fired workers had been involved in less provocative activities. More active than the people who occupied the office.
She said some simply participated in the outdoor protest and accepted T-shirts distributed by organizers. She said some people were “jumping around outside and standing close to protesters for safety.”
Zelda Montez, now a former YouTube software engineer, said she was arrested after occupying Google's New York office for more than 10 hours, accusing the company of violating U.S. legal protections for its workers.
“It's clear that Google is acting illegally to discourage worker organizing by retaliating against workers who were not arrested,” Montes said. “I'm disappointed, but not surprised, by how evil Google is. Google is more furious about its employees sitting calmly than its technology is killing people.” is.”
Google's Kowalczyk said the Nimbus contract “does not cover” “weapons or intelligence-related workloads.”
