Harvard pro-Palestine groups plan event bringing Google employees fired for "organizing for Palestine" on the job
The former employees of Google were fired after hosting sit-ins at Google’s New York and California offices, where individuals criticized the company for supporting Israel.
A Harvard University undergraduate pro-Palestine group has announced over Instagram that the group has invited two former employees of Google to speak to students.
The two individuals, who in the post are described as “[E]x-Google employees fired for organizing for Palestine with No Tech for Apartheid (NOTA).” No Tech for Apartheid is self-described on its website as a coalition of Google and Amazon employees who are publicly critical of a “$1.22 billion contract to provide cloud technology to the Israeli government and military.”
In mid-April, 28 employees at Google were fired, with nine others being arrested, after the group of now-former employees of the company hosted a sit-in for Palestine at different office locations in New York and California, as reported by NBC News.
At the time, a Google spokesperson stated to NBC that the protests “[W]ere part of a longstanding campaign by a group of organizations and people who largely don’t work at Google.”
Harvard’s Undergraduate Palestinian Solidarity Committee stated in the post advertising the event that the event would feature a discussion on “Big Tech’s complicity in the military-industrial-complex, holding tech companies accountable for perpetuating oppressive systems, including Israeli apartheid, and out responsibility as students in bridging technology and social justice.”
Harvard’s PSC did not provide the names of the two former Google employees who would be speaking to students in the post. However, Democracy Now hosted a segment with two former employees, where each spoke about their motivations for why they staged sit-ins that led to their firing from the tech giant.
One of the individuals stated that “Google has done a really good job at creating a culture of dear and retaliation against workers in general,” and “But what we noticed was beautiful. So many people came up to our sit-in and basically showed support and felt that they were inspired by the work that we were doing, and felt inspired to speak out, which is exactly what we were going for.”
NPR has also reported that during the sit-in at Google’s New York office, employees sat and played Uno after presenting a banner in open view for other employees that stated “No tech for genocide.”
