I am somewhat amazed when employees with high-paying jobs try to dictate what their company can and cannot do in business. But, maybe I shouldn’t be since they always seem to get away with it. That is, until now. Google employees took over company offices in Sunnyvale, CA, demanding that they cancel a $1.2 billion contract with an Israeli company. Hey morons, you work for the company; the company doesn’t work for you.
Oops. I guess you don’t work for the company after they say something you don’t like, such as “You’re fired.” More companies need to take that approach when your employees walk away from their job to dictate to you. Back in Athens, Ohio, there was a company called McBee’s, a subsidiary of Litton Industries, a subsidiary of IBM. The wages and benefits were terrific, but they kept striking over stupid crap. The employees were told that if they went on strike again, they would close the company. They went on strike and that same morning, they padlocked all the doors.
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.
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL“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 (@KassyAkiva) April 18, 2024
BREAKING: Google employees were arrested after occupying their boss's office for more than 8 hours to demand that the company sever ties with Israel.
WATCH: pic.twitter.com/W4WQO8NNgH
— Kassy Akiva (@KassyAkiva) April 17, 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.”
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.”
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
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.
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.
