Google fires 28 employees after protesting Israeli cloud contract

Serious consequences for disruptive behavior

google employees,

You may have seen reports of protests at some of our offices yesterday. Unfortunately, a number of employees brought the event to our New York and Sunnyvale buildings. They took over office space, defaced our property, and physically disrupted the work of other Google employees. Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disturbing, and made co-workers feel threatened. We have placed the employees involved under investigation and cut off their access to our systems. Those who refused to leave were arrested by law enforcement and removed from our offices.

Following an investigation, today we have terminated the employment of twenty-eight employees found to be involved. We will continue to investigate and take necessary action.

Such behavior has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it. It clearly violates numerous policies to which all employees must adhere – including the Code of Conduct, the Policy on Harassment, Discrimination and Retaliation, and the Standards of Conduct and Concerns in the Workplace.

We are a workplace and every Googler is expected to read our policies and apply them to how they conduct and communicate in our workplace. The vast majority of our employees do the right thing. If you're one of the few who tend to think we'll ignore behavior that violates our policies, think again. The company takes this matter seriously, and we will continue to enforce our long-standing policies to take action against disruptive behavior – including termination.

You should expect to hear more from leaders about standards of behavior and discourse in the workplace.