Augusta Commissioners are set to discuss on Tuesday an alleged list of complaints purportedly sent to the commission by disgruntled workers of Gold Cross EMS service.
District 4 Commissioner Sammie Sias placed the item on the agenda after an anonymous email was sent to him as well as other commissioners and the media. The subject line of the email is “Gold Cross EMS Walkout.”
The email contains a laundry list of grievances against the company including employees being overworked, abused and underappreciated. It goes on to claim:
“Our morale is extremely low; we are burned out, stretched way too thin, running all day and all night nonstop and the moment something insignificant occurs, we get chastised for it by our administration.”
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The email also gives specific instructions for employees to walk out starting March 1 by calling in sick for their shifts and then asking their doctor for a fake note to present to Gold Cross to avoid having their licenses called into question.
Gold Cross immediately responded with an internal investigation, and a representative of the ambulance service says they are confident that the email did not originate from any of their employees.
“We have several reasons to believe this email was generated from outside our company,” says Gold Cross Vice President Steven Vincent. “The email constantly refers to ‘Superiors,’ which is a military term, we do not have ‘superiors.’ We have supervisors.”
Vincent says that a second email sent from the same account backed off the threat of a mass walkout but demanded hazard pay and holiday pay.
“The second email is one reason we are confident it did not come from any of our staff,” Vincent explains. “We are one of the few emergency services companies that offer our employees holiday pay. We actually instituted that policy last year. Everyone in the company knows they get holiday pay.”
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In an effort to be proactive, Vincent says Gold Cross put together a seven-member panel that will hear actual complaints and make sure that all employee grievances are heard.
Vincent says that the pandemic has presented significant financial challenges due to elective surgeries being cancelled, but the company has managed the challenges with no layoffs or furloughs.
After the second email was sent, the user deleted the account. However, Gold Cross has asked the Sheriff’s office to investigate because such an email could instigate what could become a public health emergency.
“We asked our employees if they were happy, and they say that they are,” Vincent says. “There was actually a letter circulated and signed by the employees stating they have no intention of walking off their jobs.”
Meanwhile, the commission is set to discuss Gold Cross and its relationship to the city…again.
Scott Hudson is the Editorial Page Editor of The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
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