Google fires 28 staff after protests against cloud contract with Israel

The terminations come after the group No Tech for Apartheid on Tuesday occupied Google offices in California and New York to protest the $1.2bn contract known as Project Nimbus.

In a statement on Thursday, Google said that physically impeding employees and preventing them from accessing company facilities was a “clear violation of our policies and completely unacceptable behaviour”.

Google also denied that the contract was related to weapons or intelligence services.

But ultimately we are a workplace and our policies and expectations are clear: This is a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts coworkers or makes them feel unsafe, to attempt to use the company as a personal platform, or to fight over disruptive issues or debate politics,” Pichai said

No Tech for Apartheid accused Google of retaliation and said those fired included staff who had not directly participated in the protests.

“This flagrant act of retaliation is a clear indication that Google values its $1.2 billion contract with the genocidal Israeli government and military more than its own workers

In the three years that we have been organising against Project Nimbus, we have yet to hear from a single executive about our concerns,” it said in a statement posted on Medium.