Why did Google fire 20 employees in the last day of the Israeli offensive on Gaza? An employee advocacy group called No Tech for Apartheid

Tuesday’s action against Project Nimbus comes after the reported death toll from the IDF’s offensive on Hamas in Gaza climbed to more than 34,000 Palestinians. The military offensive began after Hamas killed about 1,100 Israelis on October 7.

When asked if Tuesday’s actions were a violation of policies, a person from Mountain View said, “physically interfering with other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is completely unacceptable behavior.” The law enforcement was engaged to remove the people who had refused to leave the premises.

Jane Chung, a spokesperson for No Tech for Apartheid—the coalition of tech workers and Muslim- and Jewish-led activist groups MPower Change and Jewish Voice for Peace that organized the protests—says that some workers who were fired were involved in much less provocative action than those who occupied offices.

She said some people had simply gone to an outdoor protest and taken a t-shirt. Others were “flyering outside, standing near the protesters for safety.”

The software engineer who says he and a colleague were arrested after occupying the New York office for more than ten hours is accusing the company of breaching legal protections for workers.

Google fired twenty-eight employees Wednesday after they participated in protests against Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud contract with Israel’s government that also includes Amazon.

Montes joined No Tech for Apartheid, a group of employees who had been organizing around Project Nimbus. Their goal is for the Israeli government to dump its contract with the internet giant. She says the group has raised its concerns with Google’s leadership, spoke in company town halls and set up tables in Google’s offices with fliers about Project Nimbus.

As someone who’s opposed to the war in Gaza, Montes says she was shocked. This comes at a time when tension over the Israeli conflict is simmering across the country.

The No Tech for Apartheid Group: Displacing Labor with the Israeli Government in a Case of Distancing Trade Agreements

Montes worked as a software engineer at the video-sharing website YouTube, and says that there is very little people know about the contract.

She says that, “We had our voices silenced in the workplace, and not allowing for any kind of worker dissent to be expressed around the project.”

Workers at Amazon and Facebook parent Meta have also clashed with their employers over speaking out against the war. Last month Google fired another software engineer who protested at an Israel tech event.

The No Tech for Apartheid group says that without clarity on the project, it’s still unclear how the technology is being used in Israel. They say they fear it could be used in the war in Gaza and be weaponized against Palestinian civilians.

“Workers have the right to know how their labor is being used, and to have a say in ensuring the technology they build is not used for harm,” the group said in a statement.

They sat around and played a card game, until security showed up. Montes claims that after they were told to leave, the police arrived about eight hours later.

Most people were gone from the office by the time the police showed up. They handcuffed four protesters who refused to leave the building, including Montes, walked them to a freight elevator and down into the garage where a police van was waiting. The group was jailed for three and a half hours.

“We have so far concluded individual investigations that resulted in the termination of employment for 28 employees, and will continue to investigate and take action as needed,” the spokesperson said.

Montes thinks that the firings won’t work. She says that despite being fired, “we’ll keep organizing until this project is dropped.”