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April 18 (UPI) -- Google Wednesday fired 28 workers who participated in a protest against a cloud-computing contract between Google and Israel. Chris Rackow, Google's vice president of global security, said in an internal memo seen by CNBC that the company on Wednesday "terminated the employment" of the 28 individuals found to be involved in the protests following an investigation.
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Rackow added the protests violated "multiple polices that all employees must adhere to" including Google's "Code of Conduct and Policy on Harassment, Discrimination, Retaliation, Standards of Conduct and Workplace Concerns," adding the company would "continue to investigate and take action as needed."
"Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made co-workers feel threatened. We placed employees involved under investigation and cut their access to our systems," Rackow said in the memo.
The employees, part of the activist group No Tech for Apartheid, conducted protests Tuesday, including sitting in at Google offices, opposing Google and Amazon's Nimbus cloud-computing deal with the Israeli government, saying they don't want their labor to "power Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza."
Nine of them were arrested during sit-ins at Google's New York City and Sunnyvale, California offices.
A Google spokesperson told The Washington Post that the workers were "physically impeding other employees' work and preventing them from accessing our facilities" in a "clear violation of our policies" that led to their firing.
"After refusing multiple requests to leave the premises, law enforcement was engaged to remove them to ensure office safety," the email said. "We have so far concluded individual investigations that resulted in the termination of employment for 28 employees, and will continue to investigate and take action as needed."
The Tuesday protests were part of a national day of protest by No Tech for Apartheid, which alleges the tech supplied by Google and Amazon enables Israeli government surveillance of Palestinians and could help Israel further displace and discriminate against Palestinians.
"Google is enabling and profiting from Israel's AI-powered genocide through Project Nimbus, their $1B cloud contract with Israel. The Israeli military is also using Google Photos as part of a facial recognition dragnet across Gaza, which has led to the arrest, imprisonment, and torture of thousands of Palestinians with little to no evidence," the group said.
No Tech for Apartheid said Amazon and Google's deal with Israel is part of a larger pattern of Big Tech fueling state violence worldwide.
A Google spokesman told CNBC that its work with the Israeli government is part of a broader project that includes work with other countries.
"Google Cloud supports numerous governments around the world in countries where we operate, including the Israeli government, with our generally available cloud computing services," the spokesperson said. "This work is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services."
