On Thursday, Google dismissed 28 employees after they protested against the company’s cloud contract with the Israeli government.
A subset of employees disrupted work at several Google offices. Google stated that impeding work and denying access to facilities violated company policies and was utterly unacceptable.
Following thorough investigations, Google terminated these 28 employees and plans to continue monitoring and addressing any further issues.
In a Medium post, affiliated Google workers from the “No Tech for Apartheid” campaign criticized the firings as retaliatory. They claimed the terminations included employees who hadn’t actively protested. They argued for the right to express labor-related concerns peacefully.
The protest focused on Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract between Google, Amazon, and the Israeli government, alleged to support military advancements. However, Google clarified that Nimbus does not involve sensitive or military-specific tasks linked to weaponry or intelligence.
This protest echoes a previous instance from 2018 when Google employees successfully halted Project Maven, a U.S. military contract involving the analysis of drone imagery for potential military use.
