Google recently fired 28 employees after a series of protests against labor conditions and the company’s contract to provide the Israeli government and military with cloud computing and artificial intelligence services. The protests were led by the “No Tech for Apartheid” organization, which is focused on Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract between Google and Amazon to provide the Israeli government and military with cloud computing services, including AI tools, data centers, and other cloud infrastructure.

The protests followed the arrest of nine Google workers in New York and Sunnyvale, California, who were arrested for trespassing after staging a sit-in at the company’s offices. Some of the arrested workers were locked out of their work accounts and offices and placed on administrative leave.

The workers were protesting labor conditions, including the harassment, intimidation, bullying, silencing, and censorship of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim Googlers. They were also protesting the potential impacts of their work on the health and safety of workers, particularly those in Google Cloud.

Google has stated that physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing the company’s facilities is a violation of its policies and completely unacceptable behavior. The company has terminated the employment of 28 employees following investigations and will continue to investigate and take action as needed.

The protests highlight the increasing pressure on Google from workers who oppose military use of its AI and cloud technology. Last month, a Google Cloud engineer was fired after interrupting a keynote speech from the managing director of Google’s Israel business, stating, “I refuse to build technology that powers genocide.” An internal Google employee message board was also shut down after staffers posted comments about the company’s Israeli military contracts.

The Israeli Ministry of Defense has reportedly sought consulting services from Google to expand its access to Google Cloud services. Google Photos is one platform used by the Israeli government to conduct surveillance in Gaza, according to The New York Times.

The protests and firings have sparked widespread criticism and calls for Google to address the concerns of its workers and the potential impacts of its work on human rights. The “No Tech for Apartheid” organization has called for the cancellation of Project Nimbus and for Google to stop providing cloud computing and AI services to the Israeli government and military.

Read the full memo below:

Googlers,

You may have seen reports of protests at some of our offices yesterday. Unfortunately, a number of employees brought the event into our buildings in New York and Sunnyvale. They took over office spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers. 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. Those who refused to leave were arrested by law enforcement and removed from our offices.

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

Behavior like this has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it. 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.

We are a place of business and every Googler is expected to read our policies and apply them to how they conduct themselves and communicate in our workplace. The overwhelming majority of our employees do the right thing. If you’re one of the few who are tempted to think we’re going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again. 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.

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

Chris