Google fires 20 more workers after staff staged anti-Israel protests as CEO Sundar Pichai says workplace isn't for politics

Google has fired at least 20 more of its employees for protesting the technology its giving to Israel as the war in Gaza rages on.

This comes after Google fired approximately 30 employees last week after they were arrested for staging sits-ins at the company's offices in Sunnyvale, California and New York City, bringing the total number terminated to around 50.

Google said it fired the additional employees because after an internal investigation, the company identified other staffers who used masks and didn't carry their badges to hide their identities. 

No Tech For Apartheid, an organization critical of Google and Amazon's contract with Israel that the fired employees are thought to be associated with, released a statement following the latest terminations.

'Google's aims are clear: the corporation is attempting to quash dissent, silence its workers, and reassert its power over them,' organization spokesperson Jane Chung said in a press release. 'In its attempts to do so, Google has decided to unceremoniously, and without due process, upend the livelihoods of over 50 of its own workers.'

Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai (pictured) responded indirectly to the protests last week in a blog post, condemning protestors for conduct that 'disrupts coworkers or makes them feel unsafe'

Search engine giant Google has now fired up to 50 of its employees after some were arrested for staging sits-ins at the company’s offices to protest its contract with the Israeli government

Google's reason for firing the additional employees was because after an investigation, the company identified more staffers who used masks and didn't carry their badges to hide their identities. 

A Google spokesperson had previously said that the protestors had been placed on administrative leave and their access to office systems was limited

Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai also alluded to last week's protest in an April 18 blog post, burying his response underneath some run-of-the-mill company announcements.

'We also need to be more focused in how we work, collaborate, discuss and even disagree,' Pichai wrote. '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.'

The pro-Palestinian employees - some of whom were seen wearing traditional Arab headscarves - were protesting 'Project Nimbus,' a $1.2 billion contract wherein Google and Amazon jointly agreed to provide the Israeli government with cloud computing and artificial intelligence services. 

The companies signed off on this massive contract in 2021, which predates the October 7 attack from Hamas and the months-long war in Gaza that continues. 

Protestors last week occupied Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian's office in Sunnyvale, livestreaming themselves on Twitch until they were taken into custody by police.

The fired staffers are believed to be associated with a group called No Tech For Apartheid

Several Google employees were arrested Tuesday after staging sit-ins at the company's offices in California and New York

Police officers removed protestors from the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian as hundreds of people watched over a livestream

Demonstrators protested Google's $1.2 billion contract with the Israeli government, which supplies them with AI and cloud infrastructure

Opponents fear the contract, known as Project Nimbus, lays the groundwork for the Israeli military to surveil Palestinians en masse

Nine employees across both New York and Sunnyvale were arrested, though its not clear if those staffers were fired as well.

No Tech For Apartheid also had a harsh response to Pichai and Kurian following the initial firings, calling them 'genocide profiteers.' 

'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,' the statement from No Tech For Apartheid read.

Amazon workers seemingly haven't been as vocal as Google employees, since there aren't reports of mass firings at the company. Some Amazon employees did attend similar rallies last week though.

Workers' main concern stems from a clause in the $1.2 billion deal with Israel that bars Google and Amazon from denying services to specific parts of the government, sparking speculation that the tech could be used by the Israeli Defense Forces.

Protestors in the Sunnyvale office (pictured) were seen being led out of the office in handcuffs

Workers' demands include the cancellation of the Project Nimbus contract and an end to 'the harassment, intimidation, bullying, silencing, and censorship of Palestinian, Arab, Muslim Googlers'

A truck outside the New York office referenced a March report in which an Israeli official claimed Google Photos worked better than any alternative facial recognition technology

Google, in addition to letting their employees go, condemned the protests wholly and completely.

In Google vice president of global security Chris Rackow's companywide memo announcing the termination of the some 28 employees, he called the protestors' behavior 'unacceptable.'

'They took over office spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers,' the memo reportedly read.

'Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive and made co-workers feel threatened.

'Behavior like this has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it.

'It clearly violates multiple policies that all employees must adhere to – including our code of conduct and policy on harassment, discrimination, retaliation, standards of conduct, and workplace concerns.'