Google has laid off 28 employees after their involvement in a protest against the company’s latest contract with the Israeli government. As reported by The Verge, the layoffs happened after nine employees were suspended and then arrested in the US earlier this week.
These employees were clearly angered by Google’s dealings with the Israeli government worth $1.2 billion. In an internal memo to employees, quoted in the report, the company said that behaviour like this “has no place in our workplace, and we will not tolerate it.”
“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,” Google told the staff.
“The company takes this extremely seriously, and we will continue to apply our longstanding policies to take action against disruptive behaviour — up to and including termination.” The full internal memo quoted in the report reads as follows:
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 behaviour 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.
The company faces questions about its deals with governments across the globe but the ongoing situation in the region, points to a bigger issue brewing in-house which needed immediate action.
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