'Google has done a really good job of creating a culture of fear'

uh you were uh just hours ago in the jail in the local police precinct talk about why you were willing to get arrested yeah um well rather than you know consider the demands that we've been raising for you know years now um and you know listening to workers and considering the the things that we've been raising um Thomas krian and Google exx basically chose to arrest workers for speaking out um against our the use of our technology to power uh the first AI power genocide um so we were willing to get arrested for that because at this point we aren't willing to be lied to by our hups anymore we aren't willing to be disrespected by our hups anymore um and we wanted to take that to the offices and make sure it was understood by them yeah how do you sense is the support that you have among other Google workers uh uh the degree of the dissatisfaction with the policies uh of Google yeah I mean Google has done a really good job at creating a culture of fear and retaliation um against workers in general um but what we noticed was beautiful so many people came up to our sit in and basically showed support um and felt that they were inspired by the work that we were doing um and felt inspired to speak out which is exactly what we were going for um we want workers to feel like we have the power to CH choose uh where our technology is going and who we're we're contributing to um so I I felt really happy to see that yeah Ray westrick you're on the west coast uh you were arrested in California um talk about this um project Nimbus um and why you were willing to get arrested and what the response were you in the offices of the GL Google Cloud CEO yes um we sat in um at the office of Thomas curan the Google Cloud CEO um to protest project Nimbus which is a 1.2 billion contract with the Israeli government and Military between Google and Amazon um we also were demanding the protection of our co-workers um especially our Palestinian Arab and Muslim co-workers who have been consistently retaliated against harassed um and doxed for speaking out about project Nimbus and you know the humanity of Palestinians um so we were there in solidarity with them we were there to protest the contract um which um is being directly sold providing technology directly to the Israeli military as it um inflicts a genocide on Palestinians in Gaza um and yeah that is why we chose to set in sit in Thomas cryan's office and Ray could you was there any response from the CEO or or his office and are you concerned about losing your job what why would you decide to take this action yeah um we did not receive any response from the CEO and I think it's really telling that they would rather um let us sit there for 10 hour over 10 hours and arrest us um for peacefully sitting in his office than have leadership engage in our demands at in any way at all um so we've received no response from the CEO um and we were forcibly removed by the police um and I I working at Google has been you know an honor I really love my team I love the work I do but I can't in good conscience not do anything while Google is a part of this contract while Google is selling technology to the Israeli military or any military um and so it was a risk I was willing to take and I think it's risk a lot of my co-workers are willing to take because a lot of people are really agitated about this and um have consistently made their um demands clear and have face retaliation for it so um I chose to sit in knowing the risks out of care for um the use of our technology out of care for um the the impact of our technology and care for my co-workers

Channel: Middle East Eye

Views: 25,439

Keywords: middle east eye, mee, mee news, news, middle east eye news

Id: AHq_nb7P_p0

Length: 4min 11sec (251 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 18 2024