Google workers fired for protesting Israeli contract file NLRB complaint

Has anybody noticed that whenever the protests pop up. Major news outlets tend to spin them as some sort of haven for “anti-Semitism” or cite them as the “violent protests”.

I have yet to see organizations (at least on the ground, in major press releases) cite anything that represents hate against the Jewish population. Only rhetoric I have heard is those protesting the horrific actions of the Israeli government/military and the US governments enabling of those actions.

Horrific actions by the Israeli government so far (at least since the Hamas raid): indiscriminate bombing in Gaza, bombing of hospitals, many civilians impacted and from what I gather most are underage children.

Some American-Israelis at these protests (some even young adults in college) keep repeating the rhetoric by the media as well. Have seen some students say these protests are rampant with anti-Semitic rants and that these protests “want to get rid of them [Jewish students]”

Again, I have been to a few of these protests (especially the ones in TX) and have yet to see anything of this sort. I have unfortunately seen people sitting on lawns not resisting law enforcement get their faces smashed into the ground by state troopers.

Is the Israeli political machine just very effective? Or am I the delusional one ignoring the obvious?

If it’s the latter, please point me to evidence of pro-Palestine organizations supporting the violent actions of Hamas terrorists. I don’t want to see individuals that have no visible ties spouting bullshit. There should be a press release by the orgs or leaders of these orgs stating this as such.

So far I have come up empty as far as credible sources.

Did Google change, or was this protest substantially different in character?

In the reporting TFA links to about Maven I don't see any sign of employees staging disruptive protests on Google property. This is how Gizmodo describes that protest [0]:

> Google’s decision to provide artificial intelligence to the Defense Department for the analysis of drone footage has prompted backlash from Google employees and academics. Thousands of employees have signed a petition asking Google to cancel its contract for the project, nicknamed Project Maven, and dozens of employees have resigned in protest.

A petition signed by thousands and a bunch of resignations are very different than staging a sit in in an executive's office and refusing to leave when asked. And both of the protests referred to in the past (Maven and sexual harassment) seem to have had a much stronger base of support than the 20-50 people who participated in this.

Is it possible that Google is the same Google and these people have gotten caught up in unreasonable post-2020 expectations for what valid political expression in the workplace looks like?

[0] https://gizmodo.com/google-plans-not-to-renew-its-contract-f...

Googler protests in the past have typically been walk-outs and other outdoor gatherings. This protest took place within the offices. Some of the protestors occupied senior executives' offices for many hours, and had to be removed by the police. Some of the protestors also streamed their protest from within the offices of the notoriously confidentiality-obsessed company.

I don't buy the narrative that Google is cracking down on employee activism. It seems more like the activists in this instance went too far and were dealt with accordingly.

At will employment doesn't matter here. Even with at-will employment it is illegal to fire employees for some reasons. For example, it's generally against the law to fire employees for discussing their work conditions.

I think the employees will have a difficult case here, but it is conceivable that some of them might. For example I could see the NLRB ruling in favor of an employee who was fired after for expressing concern about a project with Israel, but I think the employees who staged a sit-in probably don't have a case.

Yes. Unless you can find a counter-example, it defies common sense, let alone, facts on the ground.