Google Employee Resigns Due To Retaliation & Hostility Against Workers

According to the latest reports, a Google employee who became an opponent of the tech giant’s $1 billion artificial intelligence and surveillance contract with the Israeli military recently announced her resignation. She resigned due to the Retaliation & Hostility Against Workers who speak out.

Google Employee, Ariel Koren Resigned

Ariel Koren worked as a marketing manager with the company. She stated that what she said is its creation of a hostile work environment due to her social activism. She recently tweeted that:

“I am leaving @Google this week due to retaliation & hostility against workers who speak out. Google moved my role overseas immediately after I opposed its $1B AI/surveillance contracts with Israel. And this is far from an isolated instance.”

Let’s just dig into history. The controversy related to Koren began when she protested Google’s $1.2 billion collaboration with Amazon and the Israeli military on a program called Project Nimbus. She worked very hard and spent almost more than a year organizing her protest in order to persuade Google to pull out of the deal, including circulating petitions, lobbying executives, and speaking out to news organizations. The twist is that instead of listening to her concerns Google blindsided her in November 2021 with an ultimatum. The company said either agree to move from San Francisco in the US state of California to Sao Paulo, Brazil or lose your job.

Ariel said there was no business justification for the mandated move and hence she filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Multiple media reports claimed that both Google and the NLRB found no wrongdoing while investigating. In an online post that was published on Tuesday, Koren stated her outspoken views. As a result of social activism, Google prompted to stifle her by relocating her employment overseas.

She wrote with the headline:

Google’s Complicity in Israeli Apartheid: How Google Weaponizes ‘Diversity’ to Silence Palestinians and Palestinian Human Rights Supporters.

“Google is aggressively pursuing military contracts and stripping away the voices of its employees through a pattern of silencing and retaliation towards me and many other.”

She further stated that:

“Google is weaponizing its DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) and ERG (Employee Resource Group) systems to justify the behavior, so it is no coincidence that retaliation has disproportionately impacted women, queer, and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) employees.”

Ariel, who is Jewish, has worked for the company for more than seven years and said Google’s actions to stifle outspoken workers, not just herself have been par for the course. Google has not issued a response to Ariel’s claims yet. So, Koren is encouraging Googlers to read up on Project Nimbus to take action at go/Drop-Nimbus.