Google laid off as many as 50 employees for dissenting against the company’s cloud contract with the Israeli government. According to reports, the tech giant also fired employees who were merely watching the staged sit-in protests at Google’s offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, Calif.
Read| Google layoffs: Ex-employees say company ‘scaring employees’ over Israel protest
The layoffs came days after CEO Sundar Pichai, in a blog on April 18, said that the employees should not use the company as a “personal platform” or “fight over disruptive issues or debate politics”. He also added that employees need to be more focused on how the company “works, collaborates, discusses and disagrees”.
These employees, feeling a sense of injustice, claim that they were fired ‘unlawfully’ by the company and have moved to the US labour court. In their complaint with the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), they assert that their rights under US labour law were violated when the company terminated their employment.
The employees who lost their jobs firmly believe they were simply discussing working conditions and not engaging in political debate, which they assert is a protected activity under the US labour laws.
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According to the Washington Post, one of the employees, on the condition of anonymity, said that “discussing working conditions” is a “legally protected activity”. The software engineer added, “Sundar [Pichai] can say he doesn’t want that, but the National Labor Relations Act says otherwise. Google is probably the most powerful company in the world, and the work the workers do every day has an incredible impact. To pretend it’s objective and you can’t talk about the effects of that is absurd.”
{{/usCountry}}According to the Washington Post, one of the employees, on the condition of anonymity, said that “discussing working conditions” is a “legally protected activity”. The software engineer added, “Sundar [Pichai] can say he doesn’t want that, but the National Labor Relations Act says otherwise. Google is probably the most powerful company in the world, and the work the workers do every day has an incredible impact. To pretend it’s objective and you can’t talk about the effects of that is absurd.”
{{/usCountry}}In response, Google Spokesperson Bailey Tomson defended the company’s actions. He said, “We are confident in our position and stand by our actions. This is a very clear case of employees disrupting and occupying workspaces and making other employees feel threatened and unsafe. By any standard, their behaviour was completely unacceptable.”