STATEMENT from Google workers organizing with the No Tech for Apartheid campaign on Google’s firings of 50 total workers
No Tech For Apartheid Campaign
This evening, in an aggressive and desperate act of retaliation, Google fired over 20 additional workers — including non-participating bystanders during last week’s protests.
These indiscriminate mass firings come after Google already fired 30 workers for their supposed involvement in last week’s historic, coast-to-coast sit-in at Google offices protesting the company’s $1.2 billion contract with the Israeli government and military, dubbed ‘Project Nimbus.’ This group also included workers who did not, contrary to Google’s claims, cause any disruption inside the building.
That brings the total to over 50 workers that Google has indiscriminately retaliated against — including many who did not actively participate in last Tuesday’s protest.
Google is throwing a tantrum because the company’s executives are embarrassed about the strength workers showed at last Tuesday’s historic sit-ins, as well as their botched response to them. Now, the corporation is lashing out at any worker that was physically in the vicinity of the protest — including those who were not at all involved in the campaign.
Google’s aims are clear: the corporation is attempting to quash dissent, silence its workers, and reassert its power over them. 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.
That’s because Google values its profit, and its $1.2 billion contract with the Israeli government and military, more than people. And it certainly values it over its own workers.
But what Google sorely underestimates is the strength of worker power. While Google claims that only a “small number of employees” disrupted its office last week, that “small number of employees” ignited a PR crisis for its executives. And it is this “small number of employees” that will force the company to forfeit its contract with Israel, and protect each other when leadership will not.
Finally, for Google executives, we have a simple message, that we will continue to reiterate, as long as we need to: We will not stop fighting, and we will not back down. We will not stop demanding protection for our Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim colleagues. We will continue organizing until our demands are met: Drop Project Nimbus and stop powering Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza now.
