Google It fired 28 employees on Wednesday, according to an internal memo seen by CNBC, following a series of protests against working conditions and the company’s contract to provide the Israeli government and military with cloud computing and artificial intelligence services.
The news comes a day after nine Google workers were arrested on trespassing charges Tuesday night after occupying the company’s offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California, including a protest at the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian.
Some of the arrested workers in New York and Sunnyvale, who spoke to CNBC earlier Wednesday, said that during the protest their work accounts and offices were closed, they were placed on administrative leave and told to wait to return. at work until contacted. from HR.
On Wednesday afternoon, a memo sent by Chris Rackow, Google’s vice president of global security, told Google employees that “following an investigation, today we terminated the employment of twenty-eight employees found to be involved. We will continue to investigate and take action action as required.”
The arrests, which were streamed live on Twitch by participants, follow rallies outside Google offices in New York, Sunnyvale and Seattle that drew hundreds of attendees, according to the workers involved. The protests were led by No Tech for Apartheid, centered on Project Nimbus — Google and Amazon’s $1.2 billion joint contract to provide the Israeli government and military with cloud computing services, including artificial intelligence tools. intelligence, data centers and other cloud infrastructure.
“This afternoon, Google indiscriminately fired more than two dozen workers, including those among us who did not directly participate in yesterday’s historic, 10-hour long sit-in,” No Tech for Apartheid said in a statement, adding: “In the three years since we are organizing against Project Nimbus, we have yet to hear from an executive about our concerns, Googlers have the right to peacefully protest our terms and conditions of employment.
Protesters in Sunnyvale sat in Kurian’s office for more than nine hours until they were arrested, writing demands on Kurian’s whiteboard and wearing shirts that read “Googler Against Genocide.” In New York, protesters sat in a three-story common area. Five workers from Sunnyvale and four from New York were arrested.
“On a personal level, I’m opposed to Google taking on any military contracts — no matter what government it’s with or what the contract is for,” Cheyne Anderson, a Washington, D.C.-based Google Cloud software engineer, told CNBC earlier Wednesday. . . “And I have this view because Google is an international company, and no matter what military it belongs to, there will always be people represented in Google’s employee base and also in our user base.” Anderson had flown to Sunnyvale for the protest at Kurian’s office and was one of the workers arrested Tuesday.
“Google Cloud supports many governments around the world in countries where we operate, including the Israeli government, with our generally available cloud computing services,” a Google spokesperson told CNBC on Wednesday night, adding, “This work is not directed at in highly sensitive, classified or military workloads related to weapons or intelligence services’.
The demonstrations show increased pressure on Google from workers who oppose the military use of AI and cloud technology. Last month, Google Cloud engineer Eddie Hatfield interrupted a keynote speech by the CEO of Google’s Israel business, declaring: “I refuse to create technology that enables genocide.” Hatfield was subsequently fired. That same week, an internal Google employee message board was shut down after staff posted comments about the company’s Israeli military contracts. A spokesperson at the time described the posts as “divisive content that causes disruption in our workplace.”
On October 7, Hamas carried out deadly attacks in Israel, killing 1,200 and taking over 240 hostages. The next day, Israel declared war and began implementing a siege of Gaza, cutting off access to electricity, food, water and fuel. At least 33,899 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since that date, according to the enclave’s health ministry. he said on Wednesday in a statement on Telegram. In January at the highest court of the UN, Israel rejected the charges of genocide brought by South Africa.
The Israeli Ministry of Defense reportedly sought consulting services from Google to extend its access to Google Cloud services. Google Photos is one platform used by the Israeli government to conduct surveillance in Gaza, according to the New York Times.
“I think what happened yesterday is proof that Google’s efforts to suppress all voices of opposition to this contract are not only not working but are actually backfiring,” said Ariel Koren, a former Google employee who resigned in 2022. after efforts to oppose the Project Nimbus contract, he told CNBC earlier Wednesday. “It just creates more turmoil, more anger and more engagement.”
The sit-in in New York City began at noon ET and ended around 9:30 p.m. ET. Security asked the workers to remove their banner, which spanned two floors, about an hour into the protest, according to Hasan Ibraheem, a New York-based Google software engineer and one of the arrested workers.
“I realized, ‘Oh, the place I work at is very complicit and aiding in this genocide — I have a responsibility to act against it,'” Ibrahim told CNBC earlier Wednesday. Ibraheem added, “The fact that I’m getting money from Google and Israel is paying Google — I’m getting some of that money and that weighed heavily on me.”
The workers in New York were released from the police station after about four hours.
The workers were also protesting their working conditions — namely, “that the company stop harassing, bullying, intimidation, silencing and censoring Palestinian, Arab, Muslim Googlers — and that the company reach out to workers in health crisis and security issues, especially those on Google Cloud, face because of the potential impact of their work,” according to a statement from the campaign.
“A small number of protesting employees came in and disrupted some of our sites,” a Google spokesperson told CNBC on Wednesday night. “Physically obstructing the work of other employees and preventing access to our facilities is a clear violation of our policies and completely unacceptable behavior. After refusing multiple requests to leave the facility, law enforcement committed to removing them to ensure office security. We have so far completed individual investigations resulting in the termination of employment for 28 employees and will continue to investigate and take action as necessary.”
Read the full memo below.
Googlers,
You may have seen reports of protests at some of our offices yesterday. Unfortunately, several employees brought the event to our New York and Sunnyvale buildings. They occupied office space, trespassed on our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers. Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive and made colleagues feel threatened. We have placed employees involved under investigation and cut off their access to our systems. Those who refused to leave were arrested by law enforcement and removed from our offices.
Following an investigation, we today terminated the employment of twenty-eight employees found to be involved. We will continue to investigate and take action as necessary.
Such behavior 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 our Policy on Harassment, Discrimination, Retaliation, Standards of Conduct and Workplace Concerns.
We are a business, and every Googler is expected to read our policies and apply them to how we behave and communicate in the workplace. The vast majority of our employees do the right thing. If you are one of the few who are tempted to believe that we will overlook behavior that violates our policies, think again. The company takes this very seriously, and we will continue to apply our long-standing policies to take action against disruptive behavior — up to and including termination.
You should expect to hear more from leaders about standards of behavior and speech in the workplace.
Chris