Sit-in strike in the cloud office
Google fires 28 employees after Israel protests
April 19, 2024, 8:01 a.m
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Several Google employees occupy the Google Cloud manager’s office in California to demonstrate against “Project Nimbus”. The company reacts by firing her. It is an escalation of a protest that has been simmering for years against the billion-dollar contract with Israel’s government.
The US technology company Google has fired 28 employees for occupying an office space for several hours in protest against the company’s contract with the Israeli government. This was decided after internal investigations. Further investigations are being carried out and could lead to further measures, said a company spokesman.
A group called “No Tech for Apartheid” occupied the office of Google Cloud executive Thomas Kurian in California on Tuesday. According to their own statements, the activists remained there for ten hours in the form of a sit-in strike. The activists’ video footage published by X showed police officers arresting several Google employees. Protests also took place in New York and Seattle.
Google spoke of a “small number” of employees who disrupted operations at a few Google locations. The protests are part of a “long-term campaign by a group of organizations and people, most of whom do not work at Google.”
Protest against “Project Nimbus”
The activist group protested against a collaboration between the technology companies Google and Amazon and the Israeli government worth 1.2 billion US dollars (around 1.1 billion euros). The conflict has been simmering since the contract for “Project Nimbus” began in 2021, but has been reignited since October. Accordingly, the tech giants provide the Israeli government with storage software and programs powered by artificial intelligence.
However, protesters complained that the software would serve the Israeli military and pointed to a Time magazine report in April that Google had billed the Israeli Defense Ministry more than $1 million for consulting services in a draft contract.
A Google spokesman pointed out that Israel is one of “numerous” countries whose governments the company works with. The services are not connected to military or secret service tasks.