- Google has fired 28 employees who took part in protests against its $1.2 billion cloud contract with Israel.
- The company warned employees that disruptive behavior will not be tolerated.
- The employee was fired in March for interrupting an interview with a Google Israeli executive to protest the contract.
Google has warned employees who are considering participating in sit-in protests in the future to “think again.”
Google on Wednesday fired 28 employees following internal protests over its $1.2 billion contract with Israel.
The company sent an internal memo, seen by Business Insider, on Wednesday night explaining its course of action and telling employees to reconsider violating policies during demonstrations.
“If you're one of the few people tempted to think we'll overlook behavior that violates our policies, think again,” Google said in the memo. “We take this matter very seriously.”
Protests against Google's Project Nimbus contract, which provides cloud computing services to the Israeli government and military, took place outside Google's offices in New York City, Sunnyvale and Seattle, as well as inside its offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, with numerous Employees demonstrated. Sit-in.
Google has investigated employees involved in internal protests and revoked access to its systems. Of the group, five people were arrested in Sunnyvale and charged with trespassing, and four were arrested in New York City and charged with trespassing.
Google said in a memo that this behavior violates multiple policies, including the company's Code of Conduct and Harassment, Discrimination, Retaliation, Standards of Conduct, and Workplace Concerns policies.
“They took over office space, defaced our property, and physically interfered with the work of other Googlers,” Google said in an internal memo. “Their actions were unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made colleagues feel threatened.”
The protests began around noon Tuesday, said Hasan Ibraheem, 23, one of the employees arrested in New York City. Groups of employees sat in offices and gave chants and speeches every 15 to 20 minutes until about 6 p.m.
The group had been repeatedly asked to leave, but Ibraheem said at the time that he viewed the requests as “empty threats”. Police arrested the remaining group at 9:30 p.m. after they lost access to the company's systems and refused to leave.
Google said it will continue to investigate and take action as necessary.
Google said in a memo: “This kind of behavior cannot and will not be tolerated in our workplace.”
Google added that it will continue to use its policies to take action against disruptive behavior, which could include termination. The company also said employees should expect to hear more from their leaders about standards of behavior and discourse in the workplace.
Google employees have organized protests in the past, from walkouts to protest sexual misconduct at the company to a petition calling on Google CEO Sundar Pichai to stop providing AI technology to U.S. military drones. It has made headlines for doing so.
Just recently, Google fired an employee for disrupting a presentation in New York. According to the head of Google Israel.
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 extremely 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
On February 28, Axel Springer, the parent company of Business Insider, joined 31 other media groups in filing a $2.3 billion lawsuit against Google in Dutch court, alleging losses caused by the company's advertising practices. I woke you up.
