More than 500 Google workers have signed a petition supporting a Jewish colleague who was laid off for protesting a partnership agreement with the Israeli occupation military and government, according to Lost Angeles Times.
Ariel Koren, a product marketing manager at Google for Education, has criticized her company for signing a $1.2 billion contract with Israel called Project Nimbus, a huge undertaking by Google and Amazon Web Services to provide the Israeli military and government with cloud services.
“Right after I helped organize against unethical contracts (& 2 days after returning from #disability leave), Google gave me 17 days to commit to moving to Sao Paulo—or else lose my job. Over 500 workers have petitioned, but @Google has yet to rescind the act of retaliation,” she tweeted.
Hundreds of her coworkers signed a petition which accuses Google of “unjustly retaliating” against Koren for her pro-Palestine activism.
“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.
“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.
Koren has worked at Google for about six years and spearheaded marketing efforts for Google for Education, the company’s arm creating tech tools for classrooms and educators, in Latin America. She was based in Mexico City for two years before being approved to work in San Francisco, where her partner lives, at the start of the pandemic, she said.
Google said it investigated the incident and found no evidence of retaliation against Koren.
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