Google employees sacked over Israel protests counter CEO's claims: 'Sundar Pichai can say he...'

In a recent blog post, Google CEO Sundar Pichai highlighted how employees also need to be more focused 'in how we work, collaborate, discuss and even disagree.'

Among the 50 Google employees who were recently fired for protesting the company's contract with the government of Israel, a group has filed a complaint with the US labour board claiming that they were unlawfully fired, the Times of India reported. The former employees told the National Labour Relations Board that their labour rights were violated by the tech giant when it terminated their employment.

The former Google employees claimed in their complaint that by sacking them, Google interfered with their rights under the US labour law to advocate for better working conditions.

They were not engaging in political debate but discussing work conditions related to building software sold to governments like Israel's, the former employees claimed. This discussion, they believed, is a protected activity under the National Labour Relations Act.

"That's legally protected activity," one of the software engineers recently fired by Google told ITPro. "Sundar (Pichai) can say he doesn't want that but the National Labour Relations Act says otherwise. Google is probably the most powerful company in the world, and the work the workers do every day has an incredible impact. To pretend it's objective and you can't talk about the effects of that is absurd," he added.

In a recent blog post, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said how employees also need to be more focused “in how we work, collaborate, discuss and even disagree.”

He said that Google has a culture of vibrant, open discussion “that enables us to create amazing products and turn great ideas into action,” and it is important to preserve that. However, he added that “ultimately we are a workplace and our policies and expectations are clear: 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.”

Pichai’s message comes a day after Chris Rackow, head of security, Google sent a stern message to employees. Rackow said that every employee should know how to conduct themselves in a workplace and that the overwhelming majority of employees do the right thing. “If you’re one of the few who are tempted to think we’re going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again,” he said in a stern warning to all employees.

The Google CEO said that Google employees must be objective and remain a trusted provider of information that serves its users globally. “When we come to work, our goal is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. That supersedes everything else and I expect us to act with a focus that reflects that,” Pichai told employees in the memo.