Google Fires 28 Employees Involved in Protests over Company's Contract with Israel Govt

Alphabet Inc.'s Google has laid off 28 employees who were involved in sit-in protests at its offices over a Google contract with the Israeli government.

Hyderabad: Tech giant Google has laid off 28 employees who participated in a sit-down protest over the company’s “$1.2 billion agreement with Israel.” Protesters in New York and California staged a nearly 10-hour sit-in. Nine of these employees were arrested on trespassing charges.

Google employees were arrested on April 16 after storming the office of Google Cloud Chief Operating Officer Thomas Kurian in Mountain View, California, demanding that the company cease doing business with the apartheid-era government and military of Israel. The employees were fired from the company on Wednesday following an internal investigation, according to an internal memo from Google Vice President of Global Security Chris Rackow obtained by the New York Post.

In the internal memo to employees, the company said that behaviour like this “has no place in our workplace, and we will not tolerate it.”

“The overwhelming majority of our employees do the right thing. If you’re one of the few who are tempted to think we’re going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again,” Google told the staff.

“The company takes this extremely seriously, and we will continue to apply our longstanding policies to take action against disruptive behaviour -- up to and including termination.”

The group behind the protests called Google’s move a “flagrant act of retaliation.” “Google workers have the right to peacefully protest about the terms and conditions of our labour. These firings were clearly retaliatory,” said the group called “No Tech for Apartheid.”

The company said that following an investigation, “we terminated the employment of twenty-eight employees found to be involved. We will continue to investigate and take action as needed.” (With IANS Inputs)