Former Google workers who objected to Israel deal file complaint with US labour board

Employees were protesting against company's joint $1.2bn deal with Amazon to provide cloud services to Israel

Google has said physically impeding others' work and preventing them from gaining access to the company's facilities is a 'clear violation' of policies. Reuters

A group of former Google workers who protested against the company's $1.2 billion deal with the Israeli government has filed a complaint with the US National Labour Relations Board, claiming they were unlawfully terminated.

The former employees filed the complaint on Monday, the group No Tech For Apartheid said.

The document alleges Google breached their rights by terminating or placing them on leave in response to “their protective concerted activity” in protesting against the company's deal with Israel, The Washington Post first reported.

The National has contacted No Tech For Apartheid and Google for comment.

No Tech for Apartheid last month said up to 50 workers had been terminated for protesting against Project Nimbus, a joint project with Amazon that would provide artificial intelligence and cloud services to the Israeli government and military.

The former employees allege the system is being used by the Israeli government in the Gaza war, which Google denies.

The protests occurred last month at Google's offices in Sunnyvale, California, as well as New York and Seattle.

In a statement at the time, Google said physically impeding others' work and preventing them from gaining access to the company's facilities was a “clear violation” of policies.

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai also emailed employees a day after the firings to say that work was not the place to engage in politics or disruptive behaviour, although the fired employees maintain they were debating working conditions.