Google sacks 28 employees for protesting against contract with Israel

Tech giant Google has sacked 28 employees who protested against the firm's contract with Israel. Some of the employees who participated in a sit-in protest in two of Google's offices were arrested.

Google employees protest

The employees are protesting against the firm's involvement in Project Nimbus, a substantial cloud computing deal with the Israeli government. The contract is valued at $1.2 billion and shared with Amazon. The employees of both the company's have been critical has been critical of the project.

As per The Verge, the firings occurred after a disruptive protest in which participants occupied the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian and were forcibly removed by law enforcement.

Google’s head of global security Chris Rackow has now issued a firm memo stating such behavior violates multiple company policies and would not be tolerated, indicating that Google might take further action if necessary.

"A number of employees brought the event into our buildings in New York and Sunnyvale. They took over office spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers. Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made coworkers feel threatened,"Rackow said in the memo cited by The Verge

"Behavior like this has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it. It clearly violates multiple policies that all employees must adhere to — including our Code of Conduct and Policy on Harassment, Discrimination, Retaliation, Standards of Conduct, and Workplace Concerns", he added.

He further warned the employees who are planning to partake in the protest saying the company will not overlook conduct that violates the policy.

"If you’re one of the few who are tempted to think we’re going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again. The company takes this extremely seriously", the memo read.

Meanwhile, the activist group "No Tech for Apartheid," called the firings a "flagrant act of retaliation." This group has been vocal against Project Nimbus for three years. They said that the protests were a peaceful attempt to engage with the company about the Nimbus project and that the dismissals were an unfair response to employees exercising their right to protest.

Also watch: Google employees arrested after staging protest against firm for working with Israel