Google fires over 20 employees for protests against project Nimbus

It appears that Google is cracking down hard on employees staging protests against the company. After firing 28 employees last week following sit-in protests at company offices in New York and California, the company has reported fired another 20+ employees, according to a report by The Verge. The employees were protesting Google’s $1.2 billion cloud computing project with the Israeli government, known as Project Nimbus.

According to the report, Jane Chung, a spokesperson for an outfit called No Tech for Apartheid, Google has this time fired “non-participating bystanders”. As per Chung, the total number of employees fired for staging protests has now gone up to almost 50.

It started off with employees protesting at Google offices which resulted in nine employees being arrested. Google’s head of security, Chris Rackow, sent a company-wide memo condemning the demonstrations. “This behaviour was unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made coworkers feel threatened,” Rackow stated in the memo. He emphasised that Google investigated the incident and terminated the employment of 28 employees found to be involved.

The memo served as a stern warning to all employees, reminding them of workplace conduct policies. “If you’re one of the few tempted to think we’re going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again,” Rackow wrote.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai followed up his warning to the employees. Pichai made it clear that while Google has an open culture where debate, discussions are encouraged, a line has to be drawn. “We have a culture of vibrant, open discussion that enables us to create amazing products and turn great ideas into action. That’s important to preserve,” Pichai said.

He added that the company’s 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 told employees in a memo. Moneycontrol