Following a disruptive sit-down protest over Google’s contract with the Israeli government, 28 workers were dismissed by the tech giant, as stated by a Google spokesperson on Thursday.
The protest, organized by the group “No Tech for Apartheid,” was held on Tuesday against “Project Nimbus,” Google’s joint $1.2 billion contract with Amazon to deliver cloud services to the Israeli government.
A video of the demonstration captured police arresting the Google employees at the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian in Sunnyvale, California, as shared by the advocacy group on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The occupation of Kurian’s office lasted for 10 hours, according to the advocacy group.
The workers displayed signs with messages like “Googlers against Genocide,” in reference to the allegations related to Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Additionally, “No Tech for Apartheid” organized protests in New York and Seattle, citing an April 12 Time magazine article that disclosed a draft contract where Google billed the Israeli Ministry of Defense over $1 million for consulting services.
A Google spokesperson mentioned that a “small number” of employees caused disruptions at several Google offices, but clarified that the protests were mainly led by external organizations and individuals not employed by Google.
After repeated requests for the protesters to leave were disregarded, law enforcement was called in to ensure the safety of the office premises, according to the Google spokesperson. “As a result of individual investigations, 28 employees have been terminated, and further investigations will be undertaken with appropriate actions,” the spokesperson added.
Google’s spokesperson stated that Israel is among the “several” governments receiving cloud computing services from Google. However, they emphasized that the work does not involve highly sensitive or classified military operations pertaining to weapons or intelligence services.
AFP