Google fires 28 employees after protest over Israel cloud contract

Google fired 28 employees in connection with sit-in protests at two of its offices this week, according to an internal memo obtained by The Verge. The firings come after 9 employees were suspended and then arrested in New York and California on Tuesday.

In a memo sent to all employees on Wednesday, Chris Rackow, Google’s head of global security, said that “behavior like this has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it.”

He also warned that the company would take more action if needed: “The overwhelming majority of our employees do the right thing. If you’re one of the few who are tempted to think we’re going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again. The company takes this extremely seriously, and we will continue to apply our longstanding policies to take action against disruptive behavior — up to and including termination.”

bitwolf,

Every employee is bound by the Software Engineering code of ethics.

So does this mean Google has abandoned this.

melpomenesclevage, (edited )

and at this point open protests are quixotic AF. sabotage or steal.

Cowbee,

“How dare you protest genocide. The majority of our employees shut the fuck up about us supporting genocide, get in line or get cut.”

menixator,

“don’t be evil”

NoLifeGaming,

Glad I’ve been slowly moving away from being google centric.

Wanderer, (edited )

America is run by Jews.

Any other group that racistly protects their own like this would get called out. But they can hide behind a wall of “that’s anti-semitic”.

It’s not anti semitic if it’s true. If a load of British guys did something like this because someone called out the UK. Everyone would be up in arms.

The world needs to stop being so scared of being called racist for something that isn’t.

Edit: I worded that somewhat poorly. I’m not saying all Jews. I’m saying shit people exist in the world. But every other group gets called out for it. Not calling out Jews for fear of being racist when they are being racist is not okay. Shitty people are exploiting a situation.

Buttons,
@Buttons@programming.dev avatar

Criticizing the Israeli government is fine, but criticizing an entire ethnic / religious group, like the Jews, as though they are one unified group is not fair.

Corkyskog,

Not fair is an understatement.

That comment is almost hilariously racist, to the point where it feels like trolling. All of the US openly Christian leadership are secretly jews in disguise? You know, the ones that hang around with the ones that say “maybe those literal nazis aren’t so bad”? Just seems like straight up trolling.

Drewelite,

Yeah, thought it was a troll too, but that edit 😬

Wanderer,

I should have been more clear. Some Jews are exploiting the situation.

Any race has people that would do that, but there is only one race allowed to get away with it and that need is what needs fixing. It is our reaction to it.

The same as “the man” its not all men that are bastards. But there is no issue calling out white guys for only hiring other white guys. Calling out a Jew for only hiring Jews is “racist”.

NegativeInf,

So why not say fascist strong men are manipulating the Jewish peoples for their own personal benefit. Aka, to not be voted the fuck out/thrown in jail.

It’s not like anyone’s out here trying American presidents for war crimes either. Lots of assholes get away with shitty things. It’s kinda like, the defining feature of all of history.

Allero,

The memo looks like it comes straight out of dystopian novel

How did we get here

sugar_in_your_tea,

What’s dystopian about it? Employees violated company policy and they were fired because of it. There are acceptable and unacceptable ways to handle it, and those employees chose to handle it unprofessionally.

If they want to protest on their own time and on public property, they should have every right. But protesting on company property shouldn’t have any special protections.

I’m no fan of Google and I think their business choices are despicable, but that doesn’t change the fact that first amendment protections do not apply in a typical workplace, they only serve to restrict government action. So it’s completely unsurprising that Google fired employees who destroyed company property and disrupted the work environment.

melpomenesclevage,

dumbasses should’ve just sabotaged the project, or stolen as much as they could get away with. maybe leaked it.

I agree.

sugar_in_your_tea,

That’s certainly smarter. Openly committing crimes is rarely the right approach.

SulaymanF,

Google PRIDES itself on progressivism and diversity. From transgender visibility to veganism. Google showered Ukrainian and Israeli employees with support and gave them a platform, but Palestinian supporters were left out. Say Ukrainians are dying and google will support you and even donate for you. Protest Google’s military contract that kills Palestinian civilians and violates the company ethics policies and you get fired?

This will blemish google’s reputation for a long time to come. IBM is still in the history books as helping the Nazis.

melpomenesclevage,

google needs to stop being a thing.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Google prides itself on making money and attracting top talent. Destructive and disruptive protests negatively impacts both. So AFAICT, they weren’t fired for the content of their speech, but the manner in which they chose to express it (i.e. disrupting business).

I doubt they wouldn’t can fired for taking time off to protest outside company property, it was likely due to their choice to damage and disrupt work in the buildings.

SulaymanF, (edited )

We all know that’s inconsistent. Let’s start with the fact that if this was just about money, Google wouldn’t be investing money on expensive like green initiatives or large donations to nonprofits.

If employees wanted to take time off to grieve for the LGBT deaths at the Pulse nightclub shooting, the company would have supported them. Would they have done the same for people grieving over dead Palestinian children, or fire them for not meeting their work requirements or ‘disrupting business’? Would Google fire employees who staged a sit-in over anti-Semitism in the workplace?

Google broke their corporate ethics by allying with a military for a lucrative contract; employees SHOULD be calling them out on it.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Google has broken their corporate ethics so many times I lost count. But that’s not what’s at issue here.

The employees here broke the law by destroying Google property. That’s why they were fired, not specifically because of their speech (though I’m sure that motivated a more aggressive response).

I totally agree that employees should be calling them out on it, but they should do so without breaking the law. Protest on public property just outside the building. Raise awareness with fellow employees who may not be aware. Write open letters. But don’t break the law, that’ll just get you fired and maybe arrested.

dutchkimble,

I think it’s the part where they are ready to go to the extent of hiring a T800 from the future to kill your mother before you were born

sugar_in_your_tea,

I thought they were talking about the firing.

I totally agree with Google’s partnership with Israel being dystopic.

dutchkimble,

Yes, I was only joking…

Crikeste,

Being apolitical is a political stance.

AMDIsOurLord,

🤓 Employees violated company policy

Goddamn, the boot licking and cock sucking action here could generate a whole new PornHub category

prole,

Capitalism.

Allero,

True

anticurrent,

I am curious about how hard is the Boycot Divest Sanction movement is going to go down on google knowing that Google is the Internet. they seem to focus on Starbucks and McDonald.

cyberpunk007,

There’s a whole lotta shit on the net outside the claws of google.

Topipolous,

McDonald’s and Starbucks are grassroots boycotts. On the BDS webpage they state that HP, Siemens, AXA and Puma are primary targets, as well as fruits & vegetables.

Regarding these boycott lists that exist in the internet they write

The global nature of today’s economy means that there are thousands of companies that have links to Israel and are complicit to various degrees in Israel’s violations of international law. However, for our movement to have real impact we need our consumer boycotts to be easy to explain, have wide appeal and the potential for success. That’s why globally, while we call for divestment from all companies implicated in Israel’s human rights violations, we focus our boycott campaigns on a select few strategic targets. We also encourage the principle of context sensitivity, whereby activists in any given context decide what best to target and how, in line with BDS guidelines. There is a lot of information online claiming that some large companies give money to Israel, some of which turns out to be false. BDS has built a reputation for strictly adhering to established facts and producing the most accurate information.

Google would obviously seem like a relevant target given this explanation and their current targets. At the same time, I can also only imagine that it would be more about pressurizing companies to move away from GCP and pressurizing Google to stop the collaboration with the occupation.

Kyoyeou,

Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made coworkers feel threatened

Maybe… because they feel threatened for themselves and their families?

DaCrazyJamez,

Not that I am a fan of google, but those people signed a contract that prohibits certain behavior, so I cant really blame the company this time.

Linkerbaan,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

Google had a “don’t be evil” clause as well.

Potatos_are_not_friends,

I wonder if after 2018 when they removed that line, people went, “Finally!” And twirled their evil mustache.

Natanael,

Not everything is legal to prohibit

Jamil,

Looking for more ideas how to boycott Google.

No longer using Chrome No longer using google search.

Somehow get off Gmail? Android gapps? Delete reviews?

Potatos_are_not_friends,

Unpopular opinion but boycotting Google doesn’t work.

Instead, get real inside the house.

  • Be such a great Contributor to Google Maps.
  • Be a manager of a team.
  • Work on critical systems.

Then casually start breaking shit. Woops, didn’t mean to add all this spam to Google maps. Didn’t mean to cancel another service. Didn’t mean to make search shittyer.

And if you do it correctly, you’ll get paid AND nobody will be the wiser since they’re already doing all those things.

mlg,
@mlg@lemmy.world avatar

Poor dude doesn’t know google already did this themselves by killing their project teams and bringing a team of summer interns every year to decrease the cloud cost of each app.

They don’t have to worry because they already own the market on all these apps so any competitor can be bought out or is doomed to fail.

That way they can spend all their allocated budget on new ventures like Gemini.

For example Google Maps has sucked total ******* **** for a whole ass decade now, and the people who made Android Auto have a special place for them in FOSS hell.

Potatos_are_not_friends,

Poor dude doesn’t know google already did this themselves

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/33555a36-fc01-4988-8714-06a648d10a12.jpeg

prole,

LOL

vikingtons,
@vikingtons@lemmy.world avatar

There’s FOSS apps from fdroid, fairemail or protonmail or something of the sort, CalyxOS or GrapheneOS (ironically targets the Pixel series primarily, though they sometimes sell these at a loss around the holiday season).

Gluten6970,

The Proton suite of apps have 1:1 replacements for the entire Gsuite. Some things are locked behind a subscription (email is fully free), so if you’re not into that there’s NextCloud if you can/want to self-host. Tuta is also a decent Gmail replacement. As for Gapps, there isn’t really any good replacements; MicroG breaks a lot of things and sandboxed google play services is the only other alternative (which is only available on GrapheneOS afaik).

sugar_in_your_tea,

The Proton suite of apps have 1:1 replacements for the entire Gsuite

That’s just not true, they don’t have office applications or video chat. I wish they did though. Also, their storage is pretty expensive.

Their email is pretty good though, and they have a decent VPN service as well.

Gluten6970, (edited )

they don’t have office applications or video chat

Oh right, true. I forget Google has those.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Google Sheets is the last thing really holding my back from abandoning Google. It’s just so convenient, and I’m more comfortable with it than LibreOffice. I like that I can edit things on my phone, which I haven’t found an alternative for.

Gluten6970,

OnlyOffice

sugar_in_your_tea,

Does that support something like the GOOGLEFINANCE API, or at least some kind of scripting where I could add it? I really like looking up stock quotes.

SitD,

😎👍 joke’s on them i fired them from my phone

nivellian,
@nivellian@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Same here on my PC, switched to Firefox and using duckduckgo.com to search the web

vinyl,

I decided to try out Kagi, I appreciate duckduckgo for privacy but jeez does it suck at being a search engine. Kagi is trying to be a 1:1 google search but without ads and tracking, you may ask how they operate? They charge 10 bucks a month which is a downside I’m willing to take.

xantoxis,

That’ll fix it.

Wanderer,

I think it will.

Depends what they see as the issue though.

lemmyreader,

democracynow.org/…/no_tech_for_apartheid_google_i…

the first AI-powered genocide

I’m letting those words sink in

ipkpjersi,

What a wonderful future we are entering.

GnuLinuxDude,
@GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml avatar

Ok so, “behavior like this has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it.”

But secretly selling services to a genocidal ethnostate does belong in the Google workplace and will be tolerated? Palestinians just don’t matter if you can you make a dollar off of their death and destruction??

time.com/…/google-contract-israel-defense-ministr…

ipkpjersi,

Well yeah, Google likes money.

100_kg_90_de_belin,

Somebody in this comment section didn’t get the memo

independent.co.uk/…/google-boss-i-m-very-proud-of…

cyberpunk007,

Their new mantra is “be evil”.

NegativeInf,

Nah, it’s make money. Being evil is just another perk!

JoeKrogan,
@JoeKrogan@lemmy.world avatar

I wonder If they were protesting some other interests such as against iran would they have been fired… Of course not. Countries and companies are bending over backwards for Israel.

I hope the workers challange this in court.

RidcullyTheBrown,

I don’t want to take anything away from this protest. It worked about as well as everyone hoped. We’re talking about it in an international community. But come on, there was only one way this was going to end and it was with them getting fired regardless of the country/situation. The employees knew this as well, they probably have other jobs lined out already.

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