New York: As many as 28 Google employees have lost their jobs for showing dissent.
The techies were fired over a disruptive sit-down protest over the tech giant’s contract with the Israeli government, AFP quoted a Google spokesperson as saying on Thursday.
The demonstration on Tuesday was organised by the group ‘No Tech for Apartheid’, which has long opposed ‘Project Nimbus’ – Google’s joint $1.2 billion contract with Amazon to provide cloud services to the Israeli government.
Video of the demonstration showed police arresting Google employees in Sunnyvale, California, in the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian.
The advocacy group said on X that Kurian’s office was occupied for 10 hours.
The employees held posters and banners like ‘Googlers against Genocide’ – referring Israel’s attacks on Gaza.
‘No Tech for Apartheid’ also held protests in New York and Seattle, pointing to an April 12 Time magazine article which reported a draft contract of Google billing the Israeli Ministry of Defense more than $1 million for consulting services.
A Google spokesperson said a “small number” of employees “disrupted” a few Google locations, but the protests are “part of a long-standing campaign by a group of organisations and people who largely don’t work at Google.”
“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 spokesperson informed.
He said Israel is one of numerous governments for which Google provides cloud computing services.
“This work is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services,” the Google official claimed.
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