Google is firing more workers who protested its agreement with Israel

A Google spokesperson confirmed that it had fired more workers after continuing its investigation into the April 16 protests, which included sit-ins at Google offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, California.

The firings come several days after CEO Sundar Pichai told employees in a company-wide memo that they should not use the company as a “personal platform” or “fight about disruptive issues or discuss politics.”

“The company is trying to suppress dissent, silence its workers and reassert its power over them,” said Jane Chung, spokeswoman for No Tech for Apartheid, a group that has protested Google and Amazon’s contracts with the Israeli government since 2021.

The protests at Google come as part of a wave of opposition to the US government and companies that work with the Israeli government and army. Pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested in recent days at Yale and Columbia universities, sparking accusations of violence by university officials and inspiring another wave of demonstrations at other colleges across the country. The day before the Google sit-ins, activists blocked highways, bridges and airport entrances across the United States to protest the war in Gaza.

At Google, the situation has become a public battle between Google managers and the fired employees. Google says each worker it fired effectively disrupted its offices, while the workers were They reject the allegations, saying that some of those fired did not enter the company's office on the day of the coordinated demonstrations against the company.

Google has in the past fired employees who have publicly criticized the company, but it has never fired so many people at once. For many years, Google has had a reputation as the most free and open of the big tech companies in terms of… Office culture and collaboration. The company celebrated an internal culture in which employees knew what other teams were working on and were encouraged to question leaders' decisions.

In his memo to workers, Pichai said the company's openness was a strength but applied to work issues, not politics.

“We have a culture of vibrant, open discussion that enables us to create amazing products and turn great ideas into action,” he said in the memo sent by the company. Published online. “But ultimately we are a workplace and our policies and expectations are clear: this is a business.”