Google It laid off 28 employees on Wednesday, according to an internal memo seen by CNBC, following a series of protests over labor conditions and the company’s contracts to provide cloud computing and artificial intelligence services to the Israeli government and military.
The news came one day after nine o’clock Google Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian was arrested on trespassing charges after employees staged sit-ins at the company’s offices in New York and Sunnyvale, Calif., on Tuesday night, including a protest at the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian.
Earlier Wednesday, some workers arrested in New York and Sunnyvale said they were barred from their work accounts and offices during the protests, placed on administrative leave and told to wait to return to work until someone could Contact them.
On Wednesday night, a memo sent by Chris Rackow, Google’s vice president of global security, told Google employees, “Following an investigation, today we terminated the employment of 28 employees suspected of involvement. We will continue to investigate and take action as necessary.” .
The arrests followed rallies outside Google offices in New York, Sunnyvale and Seattle that were streamed on Twitch and drew hundreds of participants, according to staff involved. The protests, led by Apartheid No Tech, focused on Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract between Google and Amazon to provide cloud computing services, including artificial intelligence tools and data centers, to the Israeli government and military. and other cloud infrastructure.
“Tonight, Google indiscriminately fired more than two dozen employees, including those of us who did not directly participate in yesterday’s historic ten-hour cross-strait sit-in protest,” Apartheid Without Tech said in a statement , adding, “In the three-plus years we’ve been organizing against Project Nimbus, we have yet to hear a single Google employee voice our concerns and have the right to peacefully challenge our labor terms and conditions. protest, these firings were clearly retaliatory.
Protesters in Sunnyvale sat in Kurian’s office for more than nine hours before being arrested, writing demands on Kurian’s whiteboard and wearing shirts that read “Googlers Stand Against Genocide.” . In New York, protesters sat on three floors of public space. Five workers from Sunnyvale and four from New York were arrested.
Earlier Wednesday, Cheyne Anderson, a Google Cloud software engineer based in Washington, told CNBC: “Personally, I am opposed to Google accepting any military contract, no matter which government they are working with, no matter what the contract is. What. “I hold that view because Google is a global company and no matter what arm it’s in, there’s always going to be someone on the receiving end…that’s represented in both Google’s employee base and our user base. ” Anderson, who flew to Sunnyvale to attend the protest at Kurian’s office, was one of the workers arrested Tuesday.
“Google Cloud supports many governments around the world in the countries where we operate, including the government of Israel, through our generally available cloud computing services,” a Google spokesman told CNBC on Wednesday night. He added, “This work is not specific to Highly sensitive, classified or military workloads related to weapons or intelligence services.
The demonstrations illustrate the pressure Google faces from workers opposed to the military use of its artificial intelligence and cloud technology. Last month, Google Cloud engineer Eddie Hatfield interrupted a keynote speech by Google’s managing director for Israel and said, “I refuse to develop technology that contributes to genocide.” Hatfield was subsequently fired. That same week, Google’s internal employee message board was shut down after employees made comments about the company’s Israeli military contracts. A spokesperson at the time described the posts as “divisive content that undermines our workplace.”
On October 7, Hamas launched a deadly attack on Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 240 hostages. The next day, Israel declared war and began a siege of Gaza, cutting off electricity, food, water and fuel supplies.At least 33,899 people have been killed in Gaza since that date, the enclave’s health ministry said said wednesday in a statement on Telegram.January at the United Nations Supreme Court, Israel Denies genocide accusations Brought to you by South Africa.
israel ministry of defense Reportedly seeking consulting services from Google Expand access to Google Cloud services.Google Photos is one of them Platform used by the Israeli government Surveillance in Gaza, The New York Times reported.
“I think what happened yesterday proved that not only did Google’s efforts to silence all opposition to this contract not work, but it actually had the opposite effect,” Ariel Koren, a former Google employee who opposed Nimbus, told CNBC earlier Wednesday. Project Contract. “It really just creates more excitement, more anger and more commitment.”
The New York sit-in began at noon ET and ended around 9:30 p.m. Hasan Ibraheem, a Google software engineer in New York City and one of the arrested employees, said that about an hour into the protest, security asked employees to take down the banner that spanned two floors.
“I realized, ‘Oh, the place where I work is complicit in this genocide and I have a responsibility to take action against it,'” Ibrahim told CNBC earlier Wednesday. Ibrahim added, “The fact that I received money from Google and Israel was paying Google — I received a portion of that money, that made a big difference to me.”
The New York staff member was released from the police station about four hours later.
Workers are also protesting their labor conditions – “an end to the company’s harassment, intimidation, bullying, silencing and censorship of Palestinian, Arab, Muslim Google employees – and demanding that the company address employee health and safety crises, particularly at Google.” employees face the potential impact of their jobs,” a press release from the event said.
“A small number of employee protesters have entered and disrupted some of our office locations,” a Google spokesperson told CNBC on Wednesday night. “Hindering other employees’ work and preventing them from entering our facilities is a clear violation of our policies and completely unacceptable behavior. After refusing multiple requests to leave the workplace, law enforcement has stepped in to remove them to ensure office safety. We have completed individual investigations to date, resulting in the dismissal of 28 employees, and will continue to investigate and take action as needed. action.
Read the full memo below.
Googlers,
You may have seen reports of protests in some of our offices yesterday. Unfortunately, some employees brought this activity into our buildings in New York and Sunnyvale. They take up office space, deface our property, and interfere with the work of other Googlers. Their behavior was unacceptable, disruptive and left colleagues feeling threatened. We investigated the employees involved and cut off their access to our systems. Those who refused to leave were arrested by law enforcement and removed from our offices.
After investigation, today we terminated the employment of 28 employees involved. We will continue to investigate and take action as necessary.
Behavior like this has no place in our workplace and will not be tolerated. It clearly violates multiple policies that all employees must abide by, including our Code of Conduct and Harassment, Discrimination, Retaliation, Standards of Conduct and Workplace Issues policy.
We are a place of business, and every Googler is expected to read our policies and apply them to how they conduct and communicate in the workplace. The vast majority of our employees are doing the right thing. If you’re one of the few who thinks we ignore violations of our policies, think again. The company takes this matter extremely seriously and we will continue to apply our long-standing policy of taking action against disruptive behavior – up to and including termination.
You should expect to hear more from leaders about standards of behavior and discourse in the workplace.
chris
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