Some of the workers arrested in New York and Sunnyvale told CNBC earlier Wednesday that they were locked out of their work accounts and offices during the protests, were given time off, and waited to return to work until contacted. He said he was told to do so. According to human resources personnel.
A memo sent Wednesday night by Chris Rakow, Google’s vice president of global security, told Google employees: “As a result of our investigation, we have today terminated the employment of 28 employees who were found to be involved. We will continue to investigate.” We will take measures as necessary.” . ”
The arrests, which were streamed live on Twitch by protesters, followed rallies in front of Google offices in New York, Sunnyvale and Seattle that drew hundreds of protesters, officials said. The protests were led by the No Technology for Apartheid organization and Project Nimbus, which provides cloud computing services to the Israeli government and military, including AI tools, data centers and other cloud infrastructure. The focus is on the joint $1.2 billion deal between Google and Amazon.
“Tonight, Google indiscriminately fired more than 20 workers, including some of our workers who did not directly participate in yesterday’s historic 10-hour sit-in protests on both coasts.” Tech for Apartheid said in a statement: “Despite the fact that we have been organizing against Project Nimbus for years, we have yet to hear from a single executive regarding our concerns. “Employees have the right to peacefully protest their working conditions. These terminations were clearly retaliatory.”
Sunnyvale protesters 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 Against Genocide.” was. In New York, protesters sat in a common area on the third floor. Five workers in Sunnyvale and four in New York state were arrested.
“On a personal level, I am opposed to any kind of military contract that Google would enter into, regardless of which government they are affiliated with or what exactly the contract is,” the Washington-based company said. Google Cloud software engineer Chayne Anderson told CNBC early Wednesday. . “And I hold that opinion because Google is an international company and no matter what military branch you’re in, there’s always going to be people on the receiving end…Google’s employee base and… These are the people who are represented by the user base.” Anderson flew to Sunnyvale to protest at Kurian’s office and was among the workers arrested Tuesday.
“Google Cloud uses publicly available cloud computing services to support many governments in the countries in which we operate, including the government of Israel,” a Google spokesperson told CNBC on Wednesday night. “This initiative is not directed at sensitive persons or individuals.” Classified workloads or military workloads related to weapons and intelligence. ”
The demonstrations show that Google is facing increasing pressure from workers who oppose military uses of AI and cloud technology. Last month, Google Cloud engineer Eddie Hatfield interrupted a keynote speech by Google’s managing director of Israel operations and said, “We refuse to build technology that promotes genocide.” Mr. Hatfield was subsequently fired. The same week, a company message board was shut down after a Google employee posted a comment about military contracts with Israel. A spokesperson at the time described the posts as “divisive content that is disruptive to the workplace.”
On October 7, Hamas carried out 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 access to electricity, food, water, and fuel. At least 33,899 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since that day, the Gaza Strip Health Ministry announced in a Wednesday Telegram statement. In January, the United Nations Supreme Court dismissed genocide charges brought by Israel against South Africa.
The Israeli Ministry of Defense has reportedly sought consulting services from Google to expand access to Google Cloud services. According to the New York Times, Google Photos is one of the platforms used by the Israeli government to conduct surveillance in Gaza.
“I think what happened yesterday is proof that Google’s attempts to suppress all voices opposing this deal are not only not working, but are actually having the opposite effect,” said former Googler. said Ariel Collen, an employee who resigned in 2022 after leading the contract effort. He opposes the Project Nimbus deal, he told CNBC earlier Wednesday. “It’s really just creating more agitation, more anger and more engagement.”
The New York sit-in began at noon ET and ended around 9:30 p.m. ET. Hasan Ibraheem, a New York City-based Google software engineer and one of the arrested workers, said security guards began working to remove the two-story banner about an hour into the protest. asked the person.
“I realized, ‘Oh, the place I work is so complicit and complicit in this genocide, and I have a responsibility to counter that,'” Ibraheem told CNBC earlier Wednesday. Ibrahim added, “The fact that I’m receiving money from Google and Israel means I’m paying Google. I’m receiving a portion of that money, so that’s me. “It weighed heavily on me,” he added.
The New York workers were released from the police station about four hours later.
The workers also demanded that the company stop harassing, intimidating, bullying, silencing, and censoring Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim Google employees, and that the company would endanger their health and safety. They were also protesting the treatment of workers, especially Google workers. “The cloud is facing more potential consequences for its work,” according to a campaign release.
A Google spokesperson told CNBC on Wednesday night that “a small number of employee protesters entered and disrupted several of our locations.” “Physically interfering with the work of other employees and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our company’s policies and is completely unacceptable conduct. Law enforcement After refusing to do so, we engaged in the removal of employees to ensure the safety of our offices. So far, the individual investigations that led to the termination of 28 employees have been concluded and we will continue to investigate. We will take action as necessary.”
Read the full memo below.
Dear Google Employees
Some of you may have seen reports yesterday that there were protests in some of our offices. Unfortunately, many employees brought their events to our buildings in New York and Sunnyvale. They took over office space, defaced our property, and physically interfered with the work of other Googlers. Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made colleagues feel threatened. We have investigated the employees involved and blocked their access to our systems. Those who refused to leave were arrested by law enforcement and removed from the office.
As a result of the investigation, today we have terminated 28 employees who were found to be involved. We will continue to investigate and respond as necessary.
This type of behavior has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it. This is a clear violation of multiple policies that all employees must abide by, including our Code of Conduct and our Harassment, Discrimination, Retaliation, Standards of Conduct, and Workplace Concerns policies.
We are a business, and all Googlers are expected to read our policies and apply them to their behavior and communications at work. The vast majority of our employees are doing the right thing. If you’re one of the few who are tempted to think that we’ll overlook behavior that violates our policies, think again. We take this matter very seriously, and we will continue to enforce our long-standing policy of taking action against disruptive behavior, up to and including termination.
They should expect to hear more from their leaders about standards of behavior and discourse in the workplace.
Chris
