Day Before Preparation

Hi <Name>!

Here are some reminders and notes on grounding in preparation for our Googlers Against ICE Day of Visibility tomorrow Thursday, April 30th.

First, let’s remember why our efforts matter. Every day, ICE kidnaps, imprisons, and illegally deports undocumented and even documented members of our communities. This largely paramilitary force remains at Trump’s behest to invade any region of the U.S., like they did Minneapolis earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Google executives continue to provide everything from cloud computing for Palantir to AI programs for U.S. border cameras, positioning Google as the upstream infrastructure of authoritarian violence against our neighbors. Just this week, Sundar also pushed through another contract with the Department of War that approves Gemini and Cloud for classified workloads, completely removing their ability to ensure that the Pentagon’s use-cases align with our company principles.

Our ability and choice to stand together as workers has never been more important. As of today, 1,600 of us have signed the Googlers Against ICE petition. The upcoming Day of Visibility, with Googlers Against ICE lunches at 10+ of our campuses and digital modes of participation, will help us build the solidarity, networks, and power that we need to effectively carry those demands to leadership, who have yet to respond.

More broadly, the Day of Visibility is important to build confidence organizing as tech workers and to demonstrate that doing so is safe and strategic, which will allow us to build in-roads with the silent majority of our colleagues who, like us, demand humanity from our leaders. This will be a small but meaningful first step toward a global community of Google workers practiced in organizing against the increasing militarism of our company.

To do this, we must ensure that we all remain safe and continue to be employed, free of retaliation, so that our unique and strong positions at the company remain intact. That means that even for a simple, policy-respecting event like the Day of Visibility — we are simply grabbing lunch together wearing matching shirts — we must take every precaution. Please read and internalize the following guidelines and hard rules of conduct for the day-of.

Day of Visibility

Goals

1. Visibly demonstrate solidarity against Google’s technology being used to facilitate deportation, surveillance and repression
2. Raise awareness of the campaign and petition
3. Meet and connect with other aligned workers
4. Discuss follow up steps and how to bring other workers into alignment and participation

Reminders

1. The Day of Visibility is not a protest or a disruption. Please be extremely mindful of your conduct as you participate in this event. Blatantly disregarding Google’s policies may invite repression or retaliation that will chill our ability to organize and plan for the future. We expect all participants to abide by Google policies to prevent repression and retaliation.
2. The solicitation policy forbids actively approaching other workers to solicit signatures or distribute materials. Do not solicit signatures from non-participants. If someone approaches you to ask what Googlers Against ICE is, it’s fine to tell them about the petition and the campaign!
3. The signage policy prohibits posting flyers or other unapproved materials. We can, however, have flyers available at the tables for interested people to approach and take.
4. If approached by security:
   1. Maintain communication discipline. Alert your security spokesperson (the campus lead unless otherwise designated) and direct security to talk to them.
   2. Indicate that this is a social event for workers by workers, and workers’ right to assembly is protected.
   3. If they make asks of you, e.g. to disperse or take down materials, do not refuse. Instead:
      1. Inform them of your right to gather with coworkers,
      2. Gather information about why they are making the ask so we can document
      3. Calmly comply with the asks and disperse