Google has the right answer to revolting employees: sack them
Amid all the jiggery-wokery of recent times, we’ve grown used to companies either turning a blind eye to employees bringing their Left-wing politics into the workplace, or actively encouraging it with pronoun badges, Black Lives Matter donations and unisex toilets.
This rainbow lanyardisation of modern working life has had the unfortunate consequence of giving some staff, particularly junior employees, the false impression that they are allowed to dictate company policy to the very people who pay their wages.
So it was striking to see Google sack 28 workers this week after they took it upon themselves to stage a sit-in protest over the tech giant’s contract to provide cloud computing and artificial intelligence services to the Israeli government.
The flurry of P45s came after the group, No Tech for Apartheid, occupied Google offices in California and New York to protest against the contract known as Project Nimbus, which is reportedly worth up to $1.2 billion.
In a statement on Thursday, Google said that the protesters’ actions – including physically impeding other employees and preventing them from accessing company facilities – was a “clear violation of our policies and completely unacceptable behaviour”.
“After refusing multiple requests to leave the premises, law enforcement was engaged to remove them to ensure office safety,” a spokesperson said.
“We have so far concluded individual investigations that resulted in the termination of employment for 28 employees, and will continue to investigate and take action as needed.”
Google has also denied that the contract was related to weapons or intelligence services.
In a blog post, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that, while the company valued its culture of vibrant, open discussion, “this is a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts coworkers or makes them feel unsafe, to attempt to use the company as a personal platform, or to fight over disruptive issues or debate politics.”
Well said. Thankfully, other companies looking for clear instructions on how to deal with revolting employees need only perform a basic Google search.
