Twenty-eight Google employees staged a pro-Hamas, anti-Israel sit-in Tuesday at the search giant’s Sunnyvale, CA headquarters, but late Wednesday evening, reality came to bite them where it hurts as the tech giant summarily canned them all.
It’s a rare example of such protesters—who have shut down bridges, airports, and highways in recent months—having to actually pay for their shenanigans.
Google Vice President of Global Security Chris Rackow laid down the law in a companywide memo:
“Behavior like this has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it,” Rackow wrote. “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.”
Rackow added that 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.”
UPDATE: Google fired 28 of the protesting employees, according to a company wide memo by Google VP of global security Chris Rackow.
“If you’re one of the few who are tempted to think we’re going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again.” https://t.co/6FhPmK214J pic.twitter.com/zjP25LzWnn
— Kassy Akiva (@KassyDillon) April 18, 2024
The pro-Hamas staffers wore traditional Arab headscarves as they stormed and occupied the office of a top executive in California, while in New York, they took over the 10th floor of Google’s offices in Manhattan. They also demonstrated in their Seattle offices in what they called a “No Tech for Genocide Day of Action.”
See:
Self-Inflicted Wound: Google’s Pro-Hamas Employees Wage Sit-In Until It Drops Business with Israel
Rackow said they committed vandalism:
“They took over office spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers,” Rackow wrote in the memo obtained by The Post. “Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made co-workers feel threatened.”
Nevertheless, they were quite proud of their actions and posted their illegal activity on social media:
BREAKING—DOZENS OF @GOOGLE WORKERS LEAD HISTORIC COAST TO COAST-INS AT @GOOGLECLOUD CEO THOMAS KURIAN’S OFFICE IN SUNNYVALE & @GOOGLE’s NYC 10TH FLOOR COMMONS. They refuse to leave until @google stops powering the genocide in Gaza
LIVESTREAM: https://t.co/uUiPbr3oDz pic.twitter.com/vCkInh0769
— No Tech For Apartheid (@NoTechApartheid) April 16, 2024
Profanity alert:
Google employees who staged protest over Gaza get shitcanned and arrested.
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) April 18, 2024
Google employees are generally well-compensated—senior software engineer positions are currently listed as paying between $263K-$375K, so these out-of-work staffers better hope that protesting pays just as well. In the meantime, they remain defiant and vow they will continue their disruptive behavior:
These mass, illegal firings will not stop us. On the contrary, they only serve as further fuel for the growth of this movement.
Make no mistake, we will continue organizing until the company drops Project Nimbus and stops powering this genocide.
— No Tech For Apartheid (@NoTechApartheid) April 18, 2024
The “Project Nimbus” mentioned in the above tweet refers to a $1.2 billion contract that Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud entered into to supply cloud computing and artificial intelligence services to the Israeli government and military.
This move by Google is welcome because we keep seeing protesters shutting down the Golden Gate Bridge as well as so many other crucial arteries yet seemingly facing no consequences (unless they’re stupid enough to try stunts like this in Ron DeSantis’ Florida).
That being said, Google is no white knight, and just because they did something right for a change does not mean they’re suddenly a company to be revered. In fact, they are a censorious behemoth who happily undermines some stories on news outlets like the one you are currently perusing.
See:
Google Really Doesn’t Want You to Read RedState’s Reporting on These Key Issues
The pro-Hamas crowd that gets so much attention here in the United States and indeed across the globe is a difficult one to sympathize with—they completely ignore the unspeakable depravity of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks against Israel but condemn almost everything the Jewish state does in its quest for survival.
While I’m certainly not joining the Google fan club for the reasons mentioned above, I commend them for doing the right thing here.
Add 28 more folks to the unemployment line.
As I mentioned, Google may have done the right thing here, but they seem to take special pleasure in demonetizing sites like ours that don’t always toe the line. One way we’ve been able to survive is through our VIP program.
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