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Title: Google Workers Protest Cloud Contract With Israel's Government

Link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/04/17/0014...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Dozens of Google employees
began occupying company offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, California,
on Tuesday in protest of the company's $1.2 billion contract providing cloud
computing services to the Israeli government. The sit-in, organized by the
activist group No Tech for Apartheid, is happening at Google Cloud CEO Thomas
Kurian's office in Sunnyvale and the 10th floor commons of Google's New York
office. The sit-in will be accompanied by outdoor protests at Google offices
in New York, Sunnyvale, San Francisco, and Seattle beginning at 2 pm ET and
11 am PT. Tuesday's actions mark an escalation in a series of recent protests
organized by tech workers who oppose their employer's relationship with the
Israeli government, especially in light of Israel's ongoing assault on Gaza.
Since Hamas killed about 1,100 Israelis on October 7, the IDF has killed more
than 34,000 Palestinians. Just over a dozen people gathered outside Google's
offices in New York and Sunnyvale on Tuesday. Among those in New York was
Google cloud software engineer Eddie Hatfield, who was fired days after
disrupting Google Israel's managing director at March's Mind The Tech, a
company-sponsored conference focused on the Israeli tech industry, in early
March. Several hours into the sit-ins on Tuesday, Google security began to
accuse the workers of "trespassing" and disrupting work, prompting several
people to leave while others vowed to remain until they were forced out. The
2021 contract, known as Project Nimbus, involves Google and Amazon jointly
providing cloud computing infrastructure and services across branches of the
Israeli government. Last week, Time reported that Google's work on Project
Nimbus involves providing direct services to the Israel Defense Forces. [...]
On March 4, more than600 other Googlers signed a petition opposing the
company's sponsorship of the conference. After Hatfield was fired three days
later, Google trust-and-safety-policy employee Vidana Abdel Khalek resigned
from her position in opposition to Project Nimbus. Then, in late March, more
than 300 Apple workers signed an open letter that alleged retaliation against
workers who have expressed support for Palestinians, and urged company
leadership to show public support for Palestinians. Hasan Ibraheem, a Google
software engineer, is participating in the sit-in at his local Google office
in New York. "This has really been a culmination of our efforts," he tells
WIRED. Since joining No Tech for Apartheid in December, Ibraheem says, he has
been participating in weekly "tabling" actions being held at Google office
cafes in New York, Sunnyvale, San Francisco, and Mountain View, California.
It involves holding a sign that says "Ask me about Project Nimbus" during
lunch break, passing out flyers, and answering questions from coworkers.
"It's actually shocking how many people at Google don't even know that this
contract exists," Ibraheem says. "A lot of people who don't know about it,
who then learn about it through us, are reasonably upset that this contract
exists. They just didn't know that it existed beforehand."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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