Google fires 28 workers after anti-Israel protests at company offices
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SUNNYVALE, Calif. - Google said on Thursday that it fired 28 employees after some workers participated in sit-in protests against the company's cloud contract with Israel.
The protests at some of its offices were over Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion joint contract with Amazon.com Inc. announced in 2021 to provide cloud services for the Israeli military and government.
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The protests, which were organized by the activist group No Tech for Apartheid, took place on Tuesday at Google offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, California – the latest in a wave of protests in the U.S. that have broken out over the Israel-Hamas war.
On Tuesday night, nine Google employees were arrested on trespassing charges – five in California and four in New York, CNBC reported. Protesters in Sunnyvale sat in Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian’s office for more than nine hours until their arrests, writing demands on Kurian’s whiteboard, according to the outlet.
FILE - Google’s Moffett Place campus has several office buildings on Bordeaux Drive in Sunnyvale, Calif. on Feb. 20, 2018. The campus houses the companys Google Cloud division. (Photo By Paul Chinn/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
"These protests were part of a longstanding campaign by a group of organizations and people who largely don’t work at Google," a Google spokesperson told FOX Television Stations.
"A small number of employee protesters entered and disrupted a few of our locations. Physically impeding other employees' work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and completely unacceptable behavior," the statement continued.
"After refusing multiple requests to leave the premises, law enforcement was engaged to remove them to ensure office safety. We have so far concluded individual investigations that resulted in the termination of employment for 28 employees, and will continue to investigate and take action as needed," the spokesperson added.
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Meanwhile, Google emailed employees this week announcing "pretty large-scale" restructuring in which the tech giant is moving some jobs overseas and making an unspecified number of layoffs, according to reports. Google said it’s planning to create "growth hubs" in India, Mexico and Ireland.
This story was reported from Cincinnati.