Should Google Have Fired Its Protesting Employees?

Google reportedly fired about 50 employees in April for participating in sit-in protests at company offices in a move that pits employee rights and free speech against workplace order and productivity.

The demonstrators opposed a $1.2 billion 2021 Google Cloud contract — known as Project Nimbus — that calls upon Google and Amazon to provide the Israeli government with cloud computing and artificial intelligence services. Protesters claim Google’s services are being used to harm Palestinians.

In a note to employees, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said, “We have a culture of vibrant, open discussion… But ultimately we are a workplace and our policies and expectations are clear: this is a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts coworkers or makes them feel unsafe, to attempt to use the company as a personal platform, or to fight over disruptive issues or debate politics.”

Google also said that Project Nimbus is “not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.”

In a blog post, No Tech For Apartheid, the organizers of the protests, accused Google of lying about what happened inside its offices during what it described as a “peaceful sit-in” that received overwhelming support from other workers who weren’t participating in the protest.

“This flagrant act of retaliation is a clear indication that Google values its $1.2 billion contract with the genocidal Israeli government and military more than its own workers,” No Tech For Apartheid asserted.

Driven by younger workers and customers who gravitate to brands that align with their values, businesses in recent years began staking out public positions on social issues, including immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, gun control, and racial justice after George Floyd’s 2020 murder. It’s become more common to see consumer boycott threats as well as employee unrest tied to a company’s position on issues or actions.

At Google, workers in the past have challenged the tech giant over issues including diversity within its workforce, sexual misconduct among executives, and other controversial contracts. In 2018, Google workers successfully pushed the company to end a deal with the U.S. Defense Department that would have helped the military analyze drone videos.

However, the sit-ins around the divisive Israel-Hamas war apparently crossed the line.

“The Israel-Hamas war is dividing employees in ways that I don’t think the debate over police brutality, for instance, ever did,” David Primo, a professor of political science and business administration at the University of Rochester in New York, told USA Today.

Among other firms, Amazon employees have also attended rallies and signed a petition to management, calling for the company to end its involvement in the Google Cloud contract. In early April, nearly 400 current and former Apple employees published an open letter alleging that several Apple Store and corporate employees have been disciplined or “wrongfully terminated” for expressing support for Palestinian people by wearing pins, bracelets, or keffiyeh.

Workers at Procter & Gamble, Nike, and Instacart all expressed displeasure, in Slack messages or emails to executives, with the way their companies have handled the response to the Israel-Hamas conflict, according to Bloomberg.

Americans remain divided over whether corporations should take stands on big political issues, although younger people feel strongly they should.

A survey of 1,500 U.S. and Canadian employees from the HR platform Achievers Workforce Institute taken in March found half of employees want to work for organizations that take public stands on world events, with younger generations (Gen Z and millennials) nearly twice as likely to want their companies to engage.

A survey of 600 C-suite leaders released last week by executive women networking group Chief found that 87% of executives believe taking a public stance on a social issue is riskier than staying silent, but 90% agreed they’re under pressure from stakeholders to take (or not take) a public stand. The pressure comes from three angles: external voices (the public, customers, and community leaders), cited by 73%; internal stakeholders (employees and shareholders), 60%; and company leadership (values of leadership team and board of directors), 58%.