Google terminates 28 employees for protesting in support of Israel

Google fired 28 employees on Wednesday after they occupied an executive’s office in California and protested in the company’s New York building to demand the company stop doing business with Israel.

“They took over office spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers,” Google vice president of global security, Chris Rackow, wrote in a company-wide memo. “Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made coworkers feel threatened.”

The protesting employees were initially placed on administrative leave while an investigation took place, and others were arrested after refusing to leave for more than eight hours.

UPDATE: Google fired 28 of the protesting employees, according to a company wide memo by Google VP of global security Chris Rackow.

“If you’re one of the few who are tempted to think we’re going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again.” https://t.co/6FhPmK214J pic.twitter.com/zjP25LzWnn

— Kassy Akiva (@KassyDillon) April 18, 2024

The protests were announced in internal emails to employees that shared a list of demands, including that Google drop its $1.2 billion contract with Israel for Project Nimbus, a cloud-computing project of the Israeli government.

“Behavior like this has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it,” Rackow continued. “It clearly violates multiple policies that all employees must adhere to … we are a place of business and every Googler is expected to read our policies and apply them to how they conduct themselves and communicate in our workplace.”

Rackow stated that most of Google’s roughly 180,000 employees “do the right thing,” adding a warning: “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 protesting employees who occupied the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian livestreamed their protest on Twitch which showed them getting arrested by police after refusing to leave.

“It’s getting kinda late,” the man says. “I wanted to ask you, you know, to cooperate, you’ve been placed on admin leave and we’d like to see if you’d just voluntarily [leave] it’s been a while. Can you do that for us?”

When he threatens to call law enforcement, employees state that they understand. Seconds later, police walk into the office and detain them all before the livestream cuts off.

The demands made by protesters included that Google cease all “business with the Israeli apartheid government and military,” stop the “harassment, intimidation, bullying, and silencing” of Palestinian and Muslim employees, and address the “health and safety crisis” among workers who are rattled over their labor being used to “enable a genocide.”

The terminations appear to be Google’s first hard steps to clamp down on the apparent rampant anti-Semitism throughout Google’s workforce. In February, The Daily Wire reported on internal anti-Semitic incidents taking place at Google, including the words “kill all Jews” found written on a bathroom wall inside its offices, and a Jewish employee being assaulted by anti-Israel protesters on one of their campuses. The Daily Wire also reported that a group of employees attempted to hijack an International Women’s Day event to bash Israel.

Now-former Google employee Kate Sim who sent an email to thousands of employees announcing her participation in the protest was also fired, according to her Twitter.

“Terminated worker here,” she tweeted. “Listen when employers tell you exactly who they are. McCarthyism is alive and well. Look how terrified they are of worker power Solidarity always we’ll keep us safe when we fight together.”

In her email, Sim accused Google leadership of lying about the purpose of Project Nimbus and profiting off of genocide.

“Our execs have blatantly lied to us, as they continue war profiteering from this AI-powered war – a deplorable use of innovative technology condemned by UN experts,” Sim wrote, adding that in the last six months, she “saw how AI-powered military technology are killing children at an unprecedented scale.”

Zelda Montes, who also sent an email announcing protest participation was also fired, according to sources.

No Tech for Apartheid, the organization that helped organize the protests, called the terminations “illegal” and said workers who did not participate in the protest were also fired.

“Google just fired over two dozen workers, including those among us who did not directly participate in yesterday’s historic, bicoastal 10-hour sit-in protests,” the group wrote on Instagram. “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 denied accusations of harassment and called Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Kurian “genocide profiteers.”

“The truth is clear: Google is terrified of workers coming together and calling for accountability and transparency from our bosses,” the group continued. “They are choosing to reveal the falsity of Google’s ‘open culture’ in order to get rid of a threat. The corporation is trying to downplay and discredit our power.”

The group added that the firings will not stop them, and “only serve as further fuel for the growth of this movement.”

“Make no mistake, we will continue organizing until the company drops Project Nimbus and stops powering this genocide,” the statement concluded.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.