![\"thumbnail\"](\"https:\/\/image.cnbcfm.com\/api\/v1\/image\/107250275-1685728476122-IMG_2201f.jpg?v=1685728535&w=60&h=60&ffmt=webp\")
<\/p>\n\n\n\nPUBLISHED THU, APR 18 202412:04 AM EDT (CNBC.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hayden Field<\/a>@HAYDENFIELD<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n KEY POINTS<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this article<\/p>\n\n\n\n Follow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT<\/p>\n\n\n\n Google and Alphabet Inc. CEO Sundar Pichai arrives at the federal courthouse in Washington, Monday, Oct. 30, 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jose Luis Magana | AP<\/p>\n\n\n\n Google<\/a> terminated 28 employees Wednesday, according to an internal memo viewed by CNBC, after a series of protests against labor conditions and the company\u2019s contract to provide the Israeli government and military with cloud computing and artificial intelligence services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The news comes one day after nine Google<\/a> workers were arrested on trespassing charges Tuesday night after staging a sit-in at the company\u2019s offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California, including a protest in Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian\u2019s office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of the arrested workers in New York and Sunnyvale, who spoke with CNBC earlier on Wednesday, said that during the protest they were locked out of their work accounts and offices, placed on administrative leave and told to wait to return to work until being contacted by HR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Wednesday evening, a memo sent by Chris Rackow, Google\u2019s vice president of global security, told Googlers that \u201cfollowing investigation, today we terminated the employment of twenty-eight employees found to be involved. We will continue to investigate and take action as needed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The arrests, which were livestreamed on Twitch by participants, follow rallies outside Google offices in New York, Sunnyvale and Seattle, which attracted hundreds of attendees, according to workers involved. The protests were led by the \u201cNo Tech for Apartheid\u201d organization, focused on Project Nimbus \u2014 Google and Amazon\u2019s joint $1.2 billion contract to provide the Israeli government and military with cloud computing services, including AI tools, data centers and other cloud infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis evening, Google indiscriminately fired over two dozen workers, including those among us who did not directly participate in yesterday\u2019s historic, bicoastal 10-hour sit-in protests,\u201d No Tech for Apartheid said in a statement, adding, \u201cIn the three years that we have been organizing against Project Nimbus, we have yet to hear from a single executive about our concerns. Google workers have the right to peacefully protest about terms and conditions of our labor. These firings were clearly retaliatory.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Protesters in Sunnyvale sat in Kurian\u2019s office for more than nine hours until their arrests, writing demands on Kurian\u2019s whiteboard and wearing shirts that read \u201cGoogler against genocide.\u201d In New York, protesters sat in a three-floor common space. Five workers from Sunnyvale and four from New York were arrested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOn a personal level, I am opposed to Google taking any military contracts \u2014 no matter which government they\u2019re with or what exactly the contract is about,\u201d Cheyne Anderson, a Google Cloud software engineer based in Washington, told CNBC earlier on Wednesday. \u201cAnd I hold that opinion because Google is an international company and no matter which military it\u2019s with, there are always going to be people on the receiving end… represented in Google\u2019s employee base and also our user base.\u201d Anderson had flown to Sunnyvale for the protest in Kurian\u2019s office and was one of the workers arrested Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGoogle Cloud supports numerous governments around the world in countries where we operate, including the Israeli government, with our generally available cloud computing services,\u201d a Google spokesperson told CNBC on Wednesday evening, adding, \u201cThis work is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The demonstrations show Google\u2019s increased pressure from workers who oppose military use of its AI and cloud technology. Last month, Google Cloud engineer Eddie Hatfield interrupted a keynote speech from the managing director of Google\u2019s Israel business stating, \u201cI refuse to build technology that powers genocide.\u201d Hatfield was subsequently fired<\/a>. That same week, an internal Google employee message board was shut down after staffers posted comments about the company\u2019s Israeli military contracts. A spokesperson at the time described the posts as \u201cdivisive content that is disruptive to our workplace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Oct. 7, Hamas carried out deadly attacks on Israel, killing 1,200 and taking more than 240 hostages. The following day, Israel declared war and began implementing a siege of Gaza, cutting off access to power, food, water and fuel. At least 33,899 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since that date, the enclave\u2019s Health Ministry said Wednesday<\/a> in a statement on Telegram. In January at the U.N.\u2019s top court, Israel rejected genocide charges<\/a> brought by South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Israeli Ministry of Defense reportedly sought consulting services from Google<\/a> to expand its access to Google Cloud services. Google Photos is one platform used by the Israeli government<\/a> to conduct surveillance in Gaza, according to The New York Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think what happened yesterday is evidence that Google\u2019s attempts to suppress all of the voices of opposition to this contract are not only not working but actually having the opposite effect,\u201d Ariel Koren, a former Google employee who resigned in 2022 after leading efforts to oppose the Project Nimbus contract, told CNBC earlier on Wednesday. \u201cIt\u2019s really just creating more agitation, more anger and more commitment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The New York sit-in started at noon ET and ended around 9:30 p.m. ET. Security asked workers to remove their banner, which spanned two floors, about an hour into the protest, according to Hasan Ibraheem, a Google software engineer based in New York City and one of the arrested workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI realized, \u2018Oh, the place that I work at is very complicit and aiding in this genocide \u2014 I have a responsibility to act against it,\u2019\u201d Ibraheem told CNBC earlier on Wednesday. Ibraheem added, \u201cThe fact that I am receiving money from Google and Israel is paying Google \u2014 I am receiving part of that money, and that weighed very heavily on me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The New York workers were released from the police station after about four hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The workers were also protesting their labor conditions \u2014 namely \u201cthat the company stop the harassment, intimidation, bullying, silencing, and censorship of Palestinian, Arab, Muslim Googlers \u2014 and that the company address the health and safety crisis workers, especially those in Google Cloud, are facing due to the potential impacts of their work,\u201d according to a release by the campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA small number of employee protesters entered and disrupted a few of our locations,\u201d a Google spokesperson told CNBC Wednesday evening. \u201cPhysically impeding other employees\u2019 work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and completely unacceptable behavior. 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read the full memo below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Googlers,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n You may have seen reports of protests at some of our offices yesterday. Unfortunately, a number of employees brought the event into our buildings in New York and Sunnyvale. They took over office spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers. Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made co-workers feel threatened. We placed employees involved under investigation and cut their access to our systems. Those who refused to leave were arrested by law enforcement and removed from our offices.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Following investigation, today we terminated the employment of twenty-eight employees found to be involved.<\/strong> We will continue to investigate and take action as needed.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Behavior like this has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it. It clearly violates multiple policies that all employees must adhere to \u2014 including our Code of Conduct and Policy on Harassment, Discrimination, Retaliation, Standards of Conduct, and Workplace Concerns.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n We are a place of business and every Googler is expected to read our policies and apply them to how they conduct themselves and communicate in our workplace. The overwhelming majority of our employees do the right thing. If you\u2019re one of the few who are tempted to think we\u2019re going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again. The company takes this extremely seriously, and we will continue to apply our longstanding policies to take action against disruptive behavior \u2014 up to and including termination.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n You should expect to hear more from leaders about standards of behavior and discourse in the workplace.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Chris<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" PUBLISHED THU, APR 18 202412:04 AM EDT (CNBC.com) Hayden Field@HAYDENFIELD KEY POINTS In this article Follow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT Google and Alphabet Inc. CEO Sundar Pichai arrives at the federal courthouse in Washington, Monday, Oct. 30, 2023. Jose Luis Magana | AP Google terminated 28 employees Wednesday, according to… Continue reading \n
\n
![\"Google](\"https:\/\/image.cnbcfm.com\/api\/v1\/image\/107325514-1698681177311-AP23303506550300.jpg?v=1698681233&w=929&h=523&vtcrop=y\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n