Google has fired dozens of employees involved in anti-Israel protests that took over the corporate offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California.
In a memo to employees, Google Vice President of Global Security Chris Rackow announced that 28 staffers who participated in a 10 hour sit-in at the company's offices, including the personal office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, were terminated Wednesday after an internal investigation.
"They took over office spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers," Rackow wrote in the memo, which Google confirmed was accurate. "Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made co-workers feel threatened."
The memo was first reported by the New York Post.
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Jane Chung, a spokesperson for the protest group No Tech For Apartheid, said in a press release that nine employees at offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, California, were arrested during Tuesday's sit-in. Several Google employees were also arrested inside the tech company's Sunnyvale offices after a sit-in.
Demonstrators were arrested after they occupied Kurian's office to read their list of demands, including that Google cut off all ties to Israel and cancel a $1.2 billion contract to provide cloud-computing and artificial intelligence services to the Israeli government.
The employees also demanded that the company stop "the harassment, intimidation, bullying, silencing, and censorship of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim Googlers."
Google has denied that its Nimbus project is assisting Israel with weapons or intelligence services.
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"Google Cloud supports numerous governments around the world in countries where we operate, including the Israeli government, with our generally available cloud computing services," the company told FOX Business in a statement.
"We have been very clear that the Nimbus contract is for workloads running on our commercial cloud by Israeli government ministries, who agree to comply with our Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy. This work is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services," a Google spokesperson said.
The company-wide memo said employees involved in the protests were placed under investigation and had their access to Google's systems cut off.
"Behavior like this has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it," Rackow wrote. Those demonstrators who refused to leave Google's premises were arrested by law enforcement and forcibly removed, he said.
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Rackow added that the protest violated Google's employee code of conduct and workplace harassment and standards of conduct policies.
"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’re one of the few who are tempted to think we’re going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again," the memo reads.
"The company takes this extremely seriously, and we will continue to apply our longstanding policies to take action against disruptive behavior — up to and including termination."
In a statement to FOX Business, a Google spokesperson said the protests were part of a "longstanding campaign by a group of organizations and people who largely don't work at Google."
"A small number of employee protesters entered and disrupted a few of our locations," the spokesperson said. "Physically impeding other employees' 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."
Google confirmed that 28 employees were fired after an internal review.
"We will continue to take action as needed," the spokesperson said.
No Tech For Apartheid did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Jane Chung, a spokeswoman for the protesters, blasted the firings in a statement.
"This evening, Google indiscriminately fired 28 workers, including those among us who did not directly participate in yesterday’s historic, bicoastal 10-hour sit-in protests," Google workers said in the statement.
"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 — the ones who create real value for executives and shareholders."
"Sundar Pichai and Thomas Kurian are genocide profiteers," the statement asserted, referring to Google’s CEO and the Google Cloud CEO, respectively.
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"We cannot comprehend how these men are able to sleep at night while their tech has enabled 100,000 Palestinians killed, reported missing, or wounded in the last six months of Israel’s genocide — and counting."
An NYPD spokesperson said about 50 people were involved in the Tuesday protest, and four were arrested for trespassing inside the Google building, according to the Post.
The Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety said the California protest "consisted of around 80 participants." Five protesters were arrested for refusing to leave Google's office, the New York Post reported.
FOX Business' Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report.
