“On Tuesday, April 16th, 2024, in a courageous and selfless act, Google workers, led by their moral obligations, legally stood up to say no to their technologies being used for genocide and entrenching apartheid.

While the world watched Google direct the police to arrest its own employees, for many it was an additional shock to see the company terminate 50 of our peers. Some of those fired were participants in a sit-in to end Project Nimbus, a contract which provides AI technology to the Israeli military. Many others simply used their First Amendment rights to vocalize their opposition to Project Nimbus in a peaceful rally on public property. Google would rather have its own employees arrested than engage with their concerns.

What Google did is not only illegal, but it shows the lengths the company is willing to go to silence workers to hide its own moral failures. Google has made it clear: anyone who stands in the way of its technology being used in a violent genocide is a threat to its profit margins.

Google workers chose to take action after months of trying other ways to communicate their concerns and being ignored by their leadership. It is workers who built these technologies and who are responsible for the massive success of tech companies like Google and Amazon. Despite this fact, it is clearer than ever that executives don’t want us to have a say on the usage of our own labor, even as it pertains to ethical concerns and perpetrating violence.

When companies fail to protect and listen to their workers, we must help to make these workers’ message louder. Amazon workers stand in solidarity with the fired Google workers and with all those who are trying to raise the alarm about Project Nimbus. Our goal is common: to end the genocide and our workplace’s complicity in war profiteering.

To Google executives, we say: This retaliation is an attack on the rights of all workers. We condemn your actions, but they will not silence us.”