Google fired 28 employees on Wednesday after they participated in protests against Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud contract with the Israeli government that includes Amazon.
Workers from both companies claimed that the deal provided advanced technology to Israel's security apparatus that could contribute to killing or harming Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. intercept And Time reported that Project Nimbus offers services that can be exploited by the Israel Defense Forces.
The 28 layoffs, confirmed by Google, took place a few hours later 9 employees were arrested by police late Tuesday because of sit-ins in the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian in Sunnyvale, California, and a corporate office in New York. All nine of those workers were fired, along with 19 other protest participants.
Google spokeswoman Anna Kowalczyk said in a statement that the employees were fired after an internal investigation concluded that they were guilty of “interfering with the work of other employees and preventing them from accessing our facilities”. She added that “after refusing multiple requests to leave the premises, law enforcement moved to remove them to ensure the safety of the office.” The Nimbus contract is “not geared” toward secret or military work, she said.
Tuesday's action against Project Nimbus comes after the reported death toll in the IDF attack on Hamas in Gaza rose to more than 34,000 Palestinians. The military offensive began after Hamas killed about 1,100 Israelis on October 7.
The sit-in at Google comes with protest of more than 100 people—including many Google employees—out of the company's offices in New York, Sunnyvale, and Seattle. Google's Kowalczyk describes employee participation as “a small number.”
Google's workforce includes the vast majority of employees of parent company Alphabet, which reported a headcount of more than 180,000 employees at the end of 2023. Some protesters at Google's offices in New York told WIRED that it received support within the company beyond those directly participating in Tuesday's protest.
Jane Chung, spokesperson for No Tech for Apartheid—a coalition of tech workers and Muslim- and Jewish-led activist groups MPower Change and Jewish Voice for Peace organized the protest—saying that some of the fired workers had engaged in much less provocative activities. act more than those who occupy the office.
Some people simply attended an outdoor protest and took a T-shirt given out by the organizers, she said. Others “flew out, standing close to the protesters to ensure safety.”
Zelda Montes, a former YouTube software engineer, said they were arrested after occupying Google's New York offices for more than 10 hours, accusing the company of violating its legal protections. United States for workers.
“It is clear that Google is engaging in illegal conduct aimed at preventing our labor organizing by retaliating against workers who are not arrested,” Montes said. “I'm disappointed in Google's brutality, but not surprised—they're more outraged by employees sitting idly by than by how their technology is killing people.”
Google’s Kowalczyk said the contract with Nimbus “is not geared toward” “workloads related to weapons or intelligence services.”
