Google said this month it had fired 28 employees who were disrupting work.
A group of Alphabet Inc Google employees have filed a complaint with a U.S. labor board, claiming the tech company unlawfully fired them for protesting its cloud contract with the Israeli government.
The complaint was filed late Monday with the U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), according to No Tech For Apartheid, a group linked to some of the workers. The group said the complaint alleges that by firing the employees, Google violated their rights under U.S. labor law to advocate for better working conditions.
Reuters could not immediately obtain a copy of the complaint. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Google said this month it had fired 28 employees who disrupted work at unspecified office locations while protesting Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract awarded jointly to Google and Amazon.com to fight the Israeli government provide cloud services.
The workers claim that the project supports Israeli development of military instruments. Google has said the Nimbus contract “does not target highly sensitive, classified or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence.”
Zelda Montes, a former Google employee who was arrested during a protest against Project Nimbus, said in a statement that Google fired employees to suppress the organization and send a message to staff that dissent would not be tolerated.
“Google is trying to incite fear among employees,” Montes said.
The workers in the NLRB complaint are seeking to resume their jobs with back pay and a statement from Google that it will not violate workers’ rights to organize.
The NLRB General Counsel, acting as a prosecutor, reviews complaints and attempts to resolve claims that he or she believes have merit. If that fails, the General Counsel can refer cases to administrative judges and a five-member board of directors appointed by the US president.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
