Following protests over its Israeli government cloud contract, Google‘s parent company Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) has terminated 28 employees. This decision comes after nine workers were initially suspended and then arrested.
What Happened: The employees were fired after participating in sit-in protests at Google’s New York and California offices. The protests were against Google’s involvement in Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion Israeli government cloud contract that also includes Amazon.com Inc, reported The Verge citing an internal memo.
The terminated employees were involved in a protest at the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, which led to their forcible removal by law enforcement. This incident follows the firing of another employee for protesting the contract during a company presentation in Israel.
In a memo to all employees, Chris Rackow, Google’s head of global security, stated that such behavior has no place in the workplace and will not be tolerated. He also warned that the company would take further action if necessary.
"The overwhelming majority of our employees do the right thing. If you're one of the few who are tempted to think we're going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, ...