Google has fired 28 employees over their participation in a 10-hour sit-in at the search giant's offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California, to protest the company's business ties with the Israeli government.
The firings come after nine employees were suspended and arrested in New York and California on Tuesday.
Google Vice President of Global Security Chris Rackow announced in a memo to the entire company that the pro-Palestinian employees, who had stormed and occupied the office of a top executive in California on Tuesday while wearing traditional Arab headscarves, were fired late on Wednesday following an internal investigation.
Rackow wrote in the memo obtained by The Post that the protesters took over office spaces, defaced their property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers. He noted that their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made co-workers feel threatened.
Protesters in New York took over the 10th floor of the company's Chelsea neighborhood headquarters as part of a demonstration that included Google's offices in Seattle.
Rackow also wrote that behavior like this has no place in the workplace, and they will not tolerate it. He added that it violates multiple policies that all employees must adhere to, including their code of conduct and policy on harassment, discrimination, retaliation, standards of conduct, and workplace concerns.
The 'No Tech For Apartheid' organization, which has criticized Google's handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict, is connected to the dismissed employees.
Furthermore, the organization posted multiple videos and live streams of the protests on X, formerly Twitter, including when local police detained them and gave final warnings to the employees for trespassing.
They have called for Google to withdraw from a $1.2 billion contract known as "Project Nimbus," under which Google Cloud and Amazon Web capabilities supply cloud computing and AI capabilities to the Israeli military and government.
Critics at the company expressed fear that the technology would be used as a weapon against Gaza's Palestinian population.
