Google has again laid off its employees, over the last few months, it is the fourth time the employees have been terminated. Soon after, a group of employees registered a complaint with the US labour board. In the lodged complaint, the employees assert that the tech giant laid almost 50 employees unjustifiably. The news comes after Google fired numerous workers for their conflict against the cloud contract of the company with the government of Israel. According to the reports, the complaint was lodged with the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) which claims that the termination of workers amounted to an infringement upon their rights that falls under the US labour law.
The reports state that the termination of the employees came over the ongoing Israel protests. At the start of April 2024, the tech giant announced that the company was terminating nearly 28 employees who disrupted operations at indefinite office locations while protesting “Project Nimbus”. It is worth noting that Project Nimbus was jointly secured by Amazon and Google and its value is approximately $1.2 billion. The vision of this project is to provide cloud services to the Israeli government during the Hamas war. The deal was locked with numerous branches of the Israeli government, including the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). After that, the firm also terminated 20 more workers who were protesting against the contract. As per Google, these terminated employees were protesting in office premises.
The Views Of Google Over Layoffs
The company released a statement in which they condemned the conduct of the workers who were terminated. Google said that their behaviour and complaints were “completely unacceptable”. In a released statement, Google added, “We carefully confirmed and reconfirmed that every single person whose employment was terminated was directly and definitively involved in disruption inside our buildings.”
The reports state that employees complained on Monday, 29 April 2024 with the US NLRB. As mentioned above, sacked workers accusing Google of infringing on their labour rights. The Washington Post, citing documents lodged by the sacked workers, stated that the tech giant violated their rights “by terminating and/or placing them on administrative leave in response to their protected concerted activity, namely, participation (or perceived participation) in a peaceful, non-disruptive protest that was directly and explicitly connected to their terms and conditions of work.”
Thoughts Of Sacked Employees The Stand Of Google Over Protests
One of the sacked employees of Google stated “That’s legally protected activity”. Giving the idea of the widespread impact of Google, the worker states, “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.”
Another former employee identified as Zelda Montes shared that she faced arrest at the time of the protests. She said the actions of Google were aimed at stopping organising efforts in the company. The tech giant was sending a message to its workers that discord would not be acceptable in the firm. The ex-employee states that “Google is trying to instill fear in workers.”
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