Google terminates 28 employees over Israel cloud contract

Google announced the termination of 28 employees on Thursday, following protests against the company’s cloud contract with the Israeli government, Reuteres reported.

The Alphabet subsidiary stated that a few protesting employees disrupted work at unspecified office locations, violating company policies and impeding others from accessing facilities. Google conducted individual investigations leading to the terminations and pledged to continue investigating and taking necessary action.

In response, Google workers associated with the No Tech for Apartheid campaign condemned the terminations as retaliatory. They claimed that even employees not directly involved in the protests were among those fired.

“Google workers have the right to peacefully protest about terms and conditions of our labor,” a Google statement said.

The protesting faction opposes Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract awarded to Google and Amazon.com in 2021 for supplying cloud services to the Israeli government, alleging its support for military tool development. Google, however, stated that the Nimbus contract does not involve highly sensitive or military-related workloads.

According to Reuters, this isn’t the first time Google has faced employee protests. In 2018, workers successfully persuaded the company to halt a contract with the US military for Project Maven, aimed at analysing aerial drone imagery with potential military applications.