Google recently let go of 28 employees who had participated in a sit-in protest at the tech giant’s offices in New York and California.
A spokesperson for the company told TechCrunch that the protesters prevented their colleagues from working and, as such, violated Google’s policies.
“A small number of employee protesters entered and disrupted a few of our locations,” the spokesperson told the outlet. “Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and completely unacceptable behavior.”
“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 spokesperson added.
BREAKING—DOZENS OF @GOOGLE WORKERS LEAD HISTORIC COAST TO COAST-INS AT @GOOGLECLOUD CEO THOMAS KURIAN’S OFFICE IN SUNNYVALE & @GOOGLE’s NYC 10TH FLOOR COMMONS. They refuse to leave until @google stops powering the genocide in Gaza
LIVESTREAM: https://t.co/uUiPbr3oDz pic.twitter.com/vCkInh0769
— No Tech For Apartheid (@NoTechApartheid) April 16, 2024
BizPacReview pointed out that the protests were held after Google and Amazon partnered to launch Project Nimbus, which is a $1.2 billion contract providing cloud computing services to Israel and its military.
Former Google software engineer Hasan Ibraheem said he participated in the protests because Google is “directly implicated in the genocide of the Palestinian people.”
In a statement to TechCrunch, Ibraheem said he felt it was his “responsibility” to try and end the contract between Google and Amazon.
“It’s my responsibility to do everything I can to end this contract even while Google pretends nothing is wrong,” Ibraheem said. “The idea of working for a company that directly provides infrastructure for genocide makes me sick. We’ve tried sending petitions to leadership but they’ve gone ignored. We will make sure they can’t ignore us anymore.”
“We will make as much noise as possible. So many workers don’t know that Google has this contract with the IOF [Israel Offensive Forces],” he added, claiming that employees of the tech giant have been mistreated “for being Muslim, Palestinian and Arab and speaking out.”
Ibraheem and his fellow protesters are members of No Tech For Apartheid, which is a leftist group that strongly opposes Google’s response to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
During the protest, nine Google employees were arrested and removed from offices after they demanded to speak with Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian.
Shortly after, the protesters wrote a statement criticizing their arrests.
“Last night, Google made the decision to arrest us, the company’s own workers — instead of engaging without concerns about Project Nimbus, the company’s $1.2 billion cloud computing contract with Israel,” the statement states.
