Ruminations: Moral/Immoral Business Disputes -- And Consequences -- Company Rules Rule

"These protests were part of a longstanding campaign by a group of organizations and people who largely don’t work at Google. A small number of employee protesters entered and disrupted a few of our locations."
"Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and completely unacceptable behavior. After refusing multiple requests to leave the premises, law enforcement was engaged to remove them to ensure office safety.”
"[We carried out] individual investigations that resulted in the termination of employment for 28 employees, and will continue to investigate and take action as needed."
Google spokesperson

Image Credits: Justice Speaks

The tech company's cloud computing contract with the government of Israel is in deep disfavour with some among the legion of people that Google employs; so much so that some of these employees have been planning and staging vigorous protests in the name of (selective) human rights. Leading to the arrest of nine workers who held sit-ins at Google's offices in California and New York, protesting the $1.2 billion contract their employer signed with Israel for the provision of custom tools meant for the use of the Israel Defense Forces.

The additional fallout of the protest and those engaged in it, refusing to vacate their illegal occupation of their employer's worksites was the identification and work disengagement of 28 staffers. No Tech for Apartheid, the group behind the protests is adamant that Google's version of events does not reflect reality, in that they claim the company fired workers who did not directly engage with the protest which the company identifies as part of a long-standing campaign by groups and "people who largely don't work at Google".

Videos and photos were posted on social media by No Tech for Apartheid in which workers in Google offices were shown holding placards and sitting on the floor, chanting slogans. A letter-writing campaign was organized by the group which has staged protests against Google's agreement to provide technology to Israel, since 2021. The cloud-computing contract, referred to as 'Nimbus' evidently caused further tension among Google employees as well as at Amazon.

The situation of worker-disagreement has risen substantially since the initiation in October of the Israel-Gaza conflict. Critics of the project claim the contract will have the effect of aiding the Israeli government's surveillance of Palestinians, leading to further displacement and discrimination. Evidently none among them appears concerned over the hideous rapes and mass murders inflicted on Israeli citizens by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the PLO and ordinary Palestinian civilians, which led to the conflict.

Locked out of their workplaces and devices Tuesday evening, learning of their termination through email that very morning, the 28 fired employees complain of having suffered shock and anger by the decision of the company. One of the fired employees who was involved in organizing the sit-in without direct participation made no secret of his impotent rage at the outcome of his free-agency-choice to oppose his employer's decision-making.

"I'm furious. This is a wildly disproportionate response to workers standing up for morality and for holding Google accountable for its own promises."
"Firing people associated with an event they don't like -- it's unbelievable."
Fired Google employee