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BREAKING
Sheikh Qassem: Our supporters make up more than half of Lebanon's population, and all of these people are united under the banner of protecting Lebanon, its Resistance, its people, and its integrity.
Sheikh Qassem: There will be no phased handing in of our arms. [The Israelis] must first enact the agreement before we start talking about a defensive strategy.
Sheikh Qassem: Be brave in the face of foreign pressures, and we will be by your side in this stance.
Sheikh Qassem: Stripping us of our arms is like stripping us of our very soul, and this will prompt us to show them our might.
Sheikh Qassem: We will not abandon our arms, for they gave us dignity; we will not abandon our arms, for they protect us against our enemy.
Sheikh Qassem: The US efforts we are seeing are aimed at sabotaging Lebanon and constitute a call for sedition.
Sheikh Qassem: If you truly want to establish sovereignty and work for Lebanon’s interests, then stop the aggression.
Sheikh Qassem: The United States, which is meddling in Lebanon, is not trustworthy but rather poses a danger to it.
Sheikh Qassem: The United States is preventing the weapons that protect the homeland.
Sheikh Qassem: The government’s latest decision [on the disarmament of the Resistance] is non-charter-based, and if the government continues down this path, it is not faithful to Lebanon’s sovereignty.

Google Zurich employees launch protest against 'unnecessary' layoffs

  • By Al Mayadeen English
  • Source: Agencies
  • 15 Mar 2023 19:17
2 Min Read

The decision to carry out mass layoffs was issued earlier in January this year. 

  • x
  • Google staff walked out in Zurich on Wednesday. (Syndicom)
    Google staff walked out in Zurich on Wednesday march 15, 2023 (Syndicom)

The Swiss trade union representing communication, IT, and media workers Syndicom said on Wednesday that an estimated 400-500 employees from Google's branch in Zurich staged mass walkouts after the company announced the layoff of 200 workers.

The decision to carry out mass layoffs was issued earlier in January this year. 

"Rallying around the slogan ‘we walk out for those who can't walk back in’, 400 - 500 Google employees in Zurich left their workplace at 11 am [10:00 GMT] in protest. Yesterday, the company announced the layoffs. Google did not take into account the broadly supported proposals of the staff to avoid the dismissals," the according to a statement issued by the trade union.  

Sad to hear that the layoffs Google announced in January have reached Zurich today, and software engineers (predictably) are also hit.

I'm working on refreshing the advice I gave to people at Uber, when we had cuts in 2020. A lot of this won't apply any more, sadly: pic.twitter.com/Nr4xBLzhWJ

— Gergely Orosz (@GergelyOrosz) March 14, 2023

Google Zurich employees said they attempted to push through several proposals in order to avoid the layoffs, yet the company rejected all of them. 

One of the proposals involved reducing the number of working hours for about 2,500 employees. 

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The trade union said that protesters were outraged over the fact that parent company Alphabet Inc. decided to lay off 5% of the workforce despite it generating billions in profits.

"The employee representation committee, together with the Syndicom union, are now in talks with Google to negotiate an extended social plan. The social plan must contain specific measures to further reduce the number of employees affected and to find new employment as quickly as possible," the statement read.  

#Google hat an seinem Sitz in Zürich 250 Angestellte entlassen. Rund 500 Google-Mitarbeitende protestierten am Mittag gegen die Entlassungen beim Tech-Giganten. @syndicom_de @Google_CH https://t.co/8fmwDPDXzZ pic.twitter.com/VpPlEcvHxn

— IT-Markt (@itmarkt) March 15, 2023

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, Calico, YouTube, Android, Nest, Ventures, Google Capital, Google X, and Google Life Sciences, recorded its annual net income for 2022 at $59.972 billion, a 21.12% decline from 2021. 

This comes in light of a slew of tech layoffs in recent months. Several tech companies have been laying off employees on massive scales since late 2022, including Microsoft, Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange, Meta, Twitter, Amazon, Netflix, and other companies.

Read more: Meta to close 5,000 jobs, fire 10,000 workers in 'year of efficiency'

  • Switzerland
  • Google
  • layoffs
  • Zurich

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