Google Fires 28 Employees After Protesting Over Cloud Contract With Israeli Government

JAKARTA - Google announced on Thursday April 18 that it had dismissed 28 employees after some of the staff took part in a protest against the company's cloud contract with the Israeli government.

One of Alphabet Inc.'s units, this said that a small number of employees who protested had disrupted work in several unnamed office locations.

"Resiliently obstructing the work of other employees and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and a behavior that is completely unacceptable," the company said in a statement.

Google said it had completed an individual investigation, resulting in the termination of employment of 28 employees, and would continue to investigate and take the necessary actions.

In a statement on Medium, Google workers affiliated with the No Tech for Apartheid campaign called it a "truergent countermeasure" and said some employees who did not immediately participate in last Tuesday's protests were also among those fired by Google.

"Google workers have the right to peacefully protest about the terms and conditions of our work," the statement added.

The protesting faction said that Project Nimbus, a US$ 1.2 billion contract awarded to Google and Amazon.com in 2021 to provide cloud services to the Israeli government, and support the development of military equipment by the Israeli government.

In a statement, Google confirmed that Nimbus' contract was "not aimed at a very sensitive, classified, or military workload relevant to weapons or intelligence services."