In an aggressive and desperate act of retaliation, Google has fired 50 workers, including non-participating bystanders, as a response to April 16th’s historic, coast-to-coast sit-ins that took place inside Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian’s office in Sunnyvale, CA, as well as the 10th floor commons of Google NYC. Through this historic, worker action — and the first of its kind in tech — tech workers with the No Tech For Apartheid campaign demanded that Google cut its $1.2B contract with Israel, known as Project Nimbus.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian are genocide profiteers. Through Project Nimbus, Google is actively aiding & abetting Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which has so far killed, disappeared, and wounded over 100,000 Palestinians, according to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. Just two weeks ago, TIME Magazine confirmed that Google has been lying to its own workers, consumers & the press for years, and is providing direct cloud/AI services to the Israeli Occupation Forces. What’s more, the corporation has actively deepened its partnership with Israeli military during the genocide in Gaza, signing a new $1M agreement as recently as one month ago.
These courageous workers put their bodies & jobs on the line inside their own workplaces, demonstrating their unwavering commitment to Palestinian liberation. For three years, through the No Tech For Apartheid campaign, thousands of workers at Google and Amazon have called on their employers to cut the billion-dollar Project Nimbus contract. It’s simple: Workers at Google and Amazon don’t want their labor to power Israeli apartheid or the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Google’s indiscriminate mass firings are a clear attempt to quash dissent, silence its workers, and reassert its power over them. Google is terrified of worker organizing for Palestine and embarrassed by last week’s show of worker power. In an attempt to assert control, Google decided to unceremoniously, and without due process, upend the livelihoods of over 50 workers, including many who did not actively participate in last Tuesday’s sit-ins. Google even called the police on its own workers at both sit-in locations, leading to the arrests of the Nimbus Nine, who were charged with trespassing at their own offices.
Unjustly fired Google workers include Palestinians who financially support families back home, workers with urgent healthcare needs, as well as those who relied on work visas to reside and work in the U.S. Irrespective of these extenuating circumstances, Google lashed out at any worker that was physically in the vicinity of the protest or who they identified through a dragnet of in-office surveillance.
Tech workers and workers everywhere will not allow their labor rights to be trampled on, nor their voices silenced. Workers need their voices heard, to be able to speak out in support of fellow workers who experience harassment and discrimination at work and who are personally and directly impacted by their bosses’ decisions about how their labor is used—in this case Palestinian Googlers being forced to watch their company’s tech being used to massacre their own people.
Join us to demand Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, and Google’s Chief of HR Fiona Ciccone reinstate the 50 fired workers & stop the retaliation against workers speaking out on Palestine. Workers’ sit-in demands included that the company stop allowing the harassment and discrimination of Palestinians, Muslim and Arab Googlers, and address the workplace health and safety crisis that Project Nimbus has created for Google workers who do not want their labor to power a genocide.
Send a clear message: Google workers and all workers who demand their companies divest from genocide, speak out on Palestine, and show up in support of their Palestinian colleagues—we have your back.
