Search giant Google fired 28 employees after they participated Tuesday in protests at company facilities — including in the Bay Area — where several people were arrested.
A company spokesperson confirmed the firings to the Bay Area News Group on Wednesday evening.
Some 80 employees protested Tuesday outside Google complexes in Sunnyvale, demanding the company drop Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract that provides cloud-computing services to the Israeli government, including military forces. Five people were arrested by Sunnyvale police on suspicion of criminal trespassing after a sit-in at one of the company’s buildings. Similar sit-ins and protests were held at Google office in New York.
After the protest cleared at 1:30 p.m., five people remained in the complex and were allowed to stay by Google, but refused to leave at 6:30 p.m. when they were asked to leave, according to Sunnyvale police Capt. Dzanh Le. The arrestees were booked at the police department and released on a citation that same night.
“We were called back by Google. They wanted the individuals to leave but they refused the request,” Le said. “We asked them to leave and they refused again.”
Google did not reveal how many of the 28 employees they fired had worked in the Bay Area.
Tuesday’s action against Project Nimbus followed a Time Magazine report that Israel has its own Google Cloud “landing zone,” providing the government with a streamlined way to store and process data and access AI services. Protesters have expressed concerns about the company potentially using artificial intelligence against civilians in Gaza.
Google stated that it operates the cloud in numerous governments including Israel, and that Nimbus work is “not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.”
Advocacy group No Tech For Apartheid, which helped organize the protest, released a statement attributed to Google workers who are part of their campaign, condemning the firings and the project. They said that the sit-in had taken place inside the office of Thomas Kurian, the CEO of Google Cloud.
“This flagrant act of retaliation is a clear indication that Google values its $1.2 billion contract with the genocidal Israeli government and military more than its own workers,” the group said in the statement. “In the three years that we have been organizing against Project Nimbus, we have yet to hear from a single executive about our concerns.
“Google workers have the right to peacefully protest about terms and conditions of our labor. These firings were clearly retaliatory.”
The Google protest Tuesday came a day after hundreds of protesters blocked major freeways in the Bay Area and in several other U.S cities to oppose the war in Gaza.
A statement from the company said that the fired employees violated company policies by physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing facilities. The company stated that it conducted individual investigations of each employee before the termination and will continue to investigate and take action as needed.
The No Tech For Apartheid statement said that “even the workers who were participating in a peaceful sit-in and refusing to leave did not damage property or threaten other workers.
“These mass, illegal firings will not stop us,” the group added. “On the contrary, they only serve as further fuel for the growth of this movement.”
Staff writer Nollyanne Delacruz contributed to this report.
