Google has fired 28 employees because they protested against Google’s contract with the Israeli government. The controversial contract name ‘Nimbus’ is mainly based on providing cloud computing and artificial intelligence services. The protesters believe that this project will worsen the already destroyed lives of Palestinians.
The protesters held sit-in protests at Google offices in California and New York. The budget associated with the Nimbus project is about $1.2 billion. Protesters raised their concern due to possible usage of technology to violate basic human rights.
Google says that protesters broke the rules and stopped other workers from working and entering the company. Google asked them to leave the place but they didn’t, so the police arrested them. As a result Google took action against them, and fired the 28 employees who were involved in the “No Tech for Apartheid” movement.
Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai warned employees in a statement:
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. 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,
“This is too important a moment as a company for us to be distracted”.
The group “No Tech for Apartheid” is organized by the protesters against the contract and 28 employees got fired who took part in it. They assured that some of them would not take part in the protest. They believe that Google valued its contract with the Israeli government more than their workers.
