In a fresh flare-up between Google and its employees who are speaking out against the tech giant's business practices and workplace conditions, more than 500 workers of the company have rallied behind a colleague who alleges she is being pushed out of her job because of her activism within the company.
Workers rallied around fellow employee Ariel Koren who’s under fire for supporting Palestinian rights, as she protested a contract with the Israeli military for its brutal oppression of Palestinians.
The workers have signed a petition accusing Google leadership of “unjustly retaliating” against Koren, a product marketing manager at Google for Education, for voicing criticism of Project Nimbus, the $1.2-billion contract Google and Amazon Web Services entered into with the Israeli military and government.
"Sadly, Ariel's case is consistent with Google's dangerous track record of worker retaliation that has made mainstream headlines in the past few years — and specifically against those speaking out against contracts that enable state violence against marginalized people," the petition said.
In a Twitter account called "Workers Against Nimbus," they also said that "We are Amazon and Google workers demanding our bosses end Project Nimbus, a $1 billion contract with the Israeli military and government. We want our labor to help people — not power human rights violations against Palestinians."
"Google leadership is unjustly retaliating against our coworker and DropNimbus member, Ariel Koren, for speaking up about how Google's Project Nimbus contract with the Israeli military will enable violations of Palestinians' human rights," it added.
"Please help amplify our worker-led call for Google/Amazon to end unethical contracts like this one. Our companies are choosing profit over humanity, dignity, accountability, and transparency, and workers are fighting back," Koren also wrote on social media.
In October, she led efforts to draft a letter among Google and Amazon workers that criticized Project Nimbus, a multi-year plan to open data centers in Israel and provide infrastructure for a full suite of cloud services to the government and military. The letter said the program would facilitate surveillance of Palestinians and the expansion of Israeli settlements, considered illegal under international law. The letter, which has amassed hundreds of employee signatures, urged Google to cut ties with the Israeli military.
In early November, Koren said she logged into a video conference call for what she expected to be a routine weekly check-in with her manager. Instead, she said, her boss presented her with an ultimatum: move to Brazil or lose her position.
Google said it investigated the incident and found no evidence of retaliation.
