Briefing Memo on the Healthy Workplace Bill

After a bit of a quiet period during the heart of the pandemic, various state legislatures are showing renewed interest in the anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill. Perhaps it’s the growing attention being accorded to toxic workplaces, or maybe it’s a sign that our elected officials are not as consumed with the challenges posed by the pandemic. (It’s likely both!)

I’ll be discussing more details during the months to come, but for now I wanted to share with you a briefing memo I put together about the Healthy Workplace Bill generally. It’s adapted from written testimonies that I’ve submitted to specific state legislatures. If you’d like to access a copy, please go here for a free download.

In addition, I made a pdf of a Dec. 2021 feature article in the ABA Journal, membership magazine of the American Bar Association, featuring my work on workplace bullying and related contributions to the field of therapeutic jurisprudence. Amanda Robert wrote the piece as part of the ABA Journal‘s “Members Who Inspire” series. Please go here for a free download of that article.

More from Dr. Robin Stern on gaslighting

I’ve recommended Dr. Robin Stern’s The Gaslight Effect: How to Spot and Survive the Hidden Manipulation Others Use to Control Your Life (2018 ed.) as the best general source of information and guidance on the phenomenon of gaslighting, which occurs often in highly manipulative workplace bullying situations.

Now Dr. Stern has moved into a more direct self-help mode with the publication of The Gaslight Effect Recovery Guide (2023). My copy of the book just arrived the other day. It is a practical, informative, workbook-style guide, and I am happy to recommend it. Among other things, it includes a standalone section for workplace-related gaslighting that many readers of this blog may find very useful.

But that’s not all! It turns out that Dr. Stern has been very busy. She has also launched The Gaslight Effect Podcast (link here), and two of the first twelve episodes are expressly about gaslighting at work.

In addition, last year she penned an important Psychology Today piece (link here) that merits a read, “When It’s Gaslighting, and When It Really Isn’t.” Here’s a snippet:

But as the word “gaslighting” gained currency, it began to lose meaning: People often tell me that someone gaslighted them when in fact, what they are describing is mere disagreement.

…It’s worth revisiting what gaslighting is and what it isn’t.

…Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse where one person’s psychological manipulation causes another person to question their reality. Gaslighting can happen between two people in any relationship. A gaslighter preserves his or her sense of self and power over the gaslightee, who adopts the gaslighter’s version of reality over their own.

It’s important to distinguish gaslighting from disagreeing and to understand when conflict veers into gaslighting.

I hasten to add that Dr. Stern is hardly an opportunist when it comes to building her body of work about gaslighting. Rather, she has been a pioneer, having authored the first edition of The Gaslight Effect in 2007, a time when gaslighting as we understand it was barely in our vocabulary of interpersonal mistreatment. She has been ahead of this (twisted) curve, and now her expertise has made her a leading authority on this topic.

Free resource: “Political Science Internships: Towards Best Practices”

I wanted to re-share a resource that may be useful to those who are offering, arranging, and participating in internship programs in politics, public policy, international relations, and related fields. The book is Renée B. Van Vechten, Bobbi Gentry, and John C. Berg, Political Science Internships: Towards Best Practices (2021), published by the American Political Science Association (APSA).

The good news is that this super helpful resource is available for free from the APSA website (link here). Here’s a general description of the book:

Political Science Internships: Towards Best Practices builds on a robust body of evidence that demonstrates the integrative power of internships to help undergraduate students learn by doing. Targeting faculty, instructors, and administrators who deliver political science curricula, this book examines the state of internships in the discipline, scrutinizing different types of internship programs, their vital components, and the roles of key stakeholders: faculty mentors and instructors, site supervisors, and students.

I contributed a chapter, “Major Legal Considerations Pertaining to Internships” (link here). Here’s a brief description:

The burgeoning intern economy developed largely in the absence of federal guidelines or clarifying legal precedents until recently, creating significant ambiguity around interns’ rights, internship providers’ responsibilities, and institutions’ potential liabilities. During the past decade, litigation has helped clarify the relationship among students, their university or college, and their internship providers under current employment and education laws. This chapter surveys the major legal developments concerning internships, including compensation, harassment, and discrimination issues, with the core question being whether an internship is treated as an employment relationship under the law.

If you read my chapter, you’ll see that I am calling upon internship providers to compensate their interns even if they are not required to under the current, inadequate state of the law. Paying interns helps to ensure wider equality of opportunity, no small priority for internships that can eventually lead to positions of power and influence in public life.

There has been at least one welcomed, concrete change by an important federal government internship provider since the book appeared. Under the Biden Administration, the White House has turned its long-time unpaid internship program into a paid one. Last summer, I was interviewed by KCBS news radio in San Francisco about that important change. You may listen to that brief interview here.

Podcast episode: On workplace bullying, therapeutic jurisprudence, pizza, etc.

My law school has a faculty podcast series designed to introduce students and others to what we’re doing. Here’s my podcast episode, recorded late last fall and now online. I talk about workplace bullying, therapeutic jurisprudence, work & the pandemic, gaslighting, classes I teach, respond to some personal Q&As about my favorite food, a recommended book, etc., and close with some advice. It’s a quick 18 minutes. To access the recording, go here.

Barista blues: On unions, coffeehouses, and memories of the end of the Great American Jobs Machine

Here’s a story from my neck of the woods (Greater Boston) that may have broader implications for the future of the labor market and the labor movement. In essence, it’s about what happened after baristas at a small independent chain of coffeehouses opted to unionize and then attempted to pressure the owners towards signing a first collective bargaining agreement.

Many readers are likely aware of the active, national campaign to unionize individual Starbucks locations in the U.S. In the Boston area, labor activists have been organizing not only local Starbucks stores, but also independent coffeehouses, which typically are staffed by younger, educated workers whose political views and financial needs are receptive to union appeals.

The Darwin’s story, briefly

Until recently, Darwin’s was an independent, family-owned chain of four coffeehouses in Cambridge, MA, in business for some 30 years. In 2021, baristas at all four locations voted to unionize. Subsequent labor negotiations proved to be contentious, and they apparently took their toll on the two co-owners. As reported by Diti Kohli for the Boston Globe (link here), in October 2022, owners Steven and Isabel Darwin:

…said that they will close their flagship cafe on Mt. Auburn Street by Nov. 22 due to “workload and personal health concerns.” The move inspired protests from unionized employees, who then picketed at Cambridge City Hall and the owners’ home. There, they demanded the owners guarantee employment to the workers displaced by the closure, raise wages to $24 per hour, and improve health care and the policy on paid time off.

In November, the Darwins decided that it was time to call it quits. They announced that they would be closing the remaining stores and retiring from the business. Co-owner Isabel Darwin told the Globe that “‘this protest march is what has resulted in the acceleration of our decision’ to step away and close the business. She noted the stores already offer a $14.25 [Massachusetts] minimum wage and other employee benefits like two free meals per shift and discounts on beer and wine.”

In December, Darwin’s closed all of its locations. And with that closing, several dozen jobs disappeared.

Living wages in Greater Boston

There are two “please walk in my shoes” perspectives that deserve our understanding, and both are important:

The first perspective recognizes the challenges facing a large cohort of young, educated folks with backgrounds outside of STEM fields, seeking viable employment in expensive areas to live, and often while carrying student loan debt. In the comments sections of Globe news articles on the Darwin’s situation, folks were quick to condemn and ridicule the union demands of $24/hour wages and beefed-up medical coverage and benefits. But when stacked against the cost of living in this area, $24/hour doesn’t go very far — not when average rents for a Boston studio apartment run between $2,000-2,200.

The second perspective recognizes the challenges facing small business owners in highly competitive retail environments, many of whom have sunk heart, soul, and personal savings into keeping their businesses afloat during the pandemic. While Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz earns significant compensation and probably won’t be found working on the store floor, the owners of indie shops are earning much less and may well be opening and closing their stores five days a week (if not more). The indie owners face tight profit margins in this business. And if they increase their prices too sharply, customers may vote with their feet — no small concern in this inflationary economy.

This raises a hard dilemma that I don’t pretend to know how to resolve, i.e., entry-level job categories that a generation or two ago were popular with younger high school and college students, now also being filled by folks who need that living wage, health insurance, and the like. They are working in retail settings originally built on a premise that most employees would be moving on to something more lucrative as skills, experience, and education grow.

Not the future of the labor movement

I believe that rebuilding the labor movement is an important part of the answer towards growing workers’ wages and benefits. It’s not by accident that the widening wealth gap in the U.S. has coincided with the decline in the percentage of workers who are unionized. In the case of Darwin’s, however, labor demands — including personalizing the dispute by protesting at the owners’ residence — may well have pushed the owners to decide it’s not worth the stress and hassle of continuing. This was not a corporate decision, it was a very personal one.

The result here is a small tragedy: Lots of folks understandably wanting better compensation and benefits suddenly out of jobs, and two long-time small business owners closing up shop because it likely broke their spirits to walk out their door and face angry protesters demanding compensation their business wasn’t wealthy enough to provide.

This scenario cannot be the future of the labor movement.

Would you like a union with that Happy Meal?

But maybe there’s another approach for organized labor that lifts more boats.

The specter of people working for low wages in the retail food and beverage industry is hardly a new one. In particular, if you opt for a fast food lunch at McDonald’s, Burger King, or similar spot, then you’re likely to be served by a non-union worker who started at something close to the minimum wage. Or maybe you prefer a regular iced coffee at Dunkin’ over the higher-priced brew at Starbucks. There, too, your server may well be earning around the minimum wage.

These jobs, too, once were the traditional province of younger people getting their starts in the job market. But here in Boston (and I presume other parts of the country), if you grab a burger or coffee at these establishments, you’ll often find folks of all ages behind the counter, and they appear to be very diverse in social class as well.

Indeed, what if some of the same folks who might be given to organizing unions at indie coffeehouses instead got jobs at national fast-food chain establishments and tried to do the same there? In terms of giving voice to those who would benefit over the long haul — including people whose present vocational options and income potential may be more limited — the long-term, positive impacts could be substantial.

Bearing witness to the decline of the Great American Jobs Machine

This is not the first time I’ve seen the retail sector become a backup source of jobs when more lucrative opportunities weren’t available.

In 1981, I graduated from Valparaiso University in Indiana with a bachelor’s degree and a political science major. My plan was to work for a year, live at home with my parents in northwest Indiana, and file my applications to law schools.

At the time, the nation was in a deep recession. Locally, the labor market was in especially bad shape, thanks largely to the sharp drop of available jobs in the steel mills. During the region’s 20th century boom, young men could graduate from high school and secure a unionized job in the steel mills, with wages and benefits sufficient to raise a family. By the early 1980s, those jobs were fast disappearing.

In my case, after several months of unsuccessful hunting for a full-time job befitting (in my mind) a college graduate, I contacted the local drug store chain I had worked for as a retail stock clerk during college summers and asked if they needed help. Fortunately they were opening a new store in the area, and they took me on. I would spend the next year working there, unloading trucks, stocking shelves, checking inventories, and assisting customers.

Among my memories of that year were how some of the women employees at the drug store, earning wages similar to mine, became primary family breadwinners after their husbands had lost their jobs in the steel mills. It was a big sign that the Great American Jobs Machine, which produced so many good paying jobs during the nation’s industrial heyday, was in a state of decline. And the jobs that replaced them tended to be low-paid retail positions in strip malls.

Looking ahead

Those low-paid retail positions have endured as a staple of the labor market, and all too many people rely on them to cover their living expenses and often to raise families. The extent to which labor unions can help to change that dynamic remains a question mark, but we know that before the industrial and manufacturing sectors became heavily unionized, low-paying jobs with scant benefits were the norm. If organized labor is to be a similar game changer for workers in the retail sector, it is likely to be at places like McDonald’s, Walmart, and Amazon, rather than at indie coffeehouses like Darwin’s.

***

Parts of this post were drawn from extended comments that I left on online news articles and a handful of past blog articles.

Cruelty goes digital: Layoffs by email

(image courtesy of freepik.com)

It was probably inevitable: As an ultimate reminder to workers that they are quickly disposable and easily disposed of, some companies are resorting to standardized emails to inform people that they no longer have a job.

The pandemic has taught many companies that their workers can be efficient and productive working from outside of the office, and a good number of employers have embraced remote work as a new norm. Recent rounds of layoffs in the high tech sector are now showing us what happens when remote work meets the human resources function.

Among the more well-publicized examples, we have Google (12,000 layoffs) using standardized emails to notify employees of terminations, as reported by Kristopher J. Brooks for CBS News (link here):

Jeremy Joslin spent two decades as a software engineer for Google only to be laid off last week along with thousands of his co-workers. The way the company notified him was “cold,” Joslin said.

…Joslin and other ex-employees at Google said they received notice of their dismissal via an email sent to their personal address, which struck them as insensitive. Receiving no advance warning of what would be their last day at the company added further insult to injury, they said.

And then there’s Amazon (18,000 layoffs) using the same approach, as reported by Ariel Zilber for the New York Post (link here):

Fired Amazon workers griped about the e-retail giant using email to inform them they were no longer needed by the company, according to a published report.

At least five employees who were laid off Wednesday said they received a cold-blooded missive from management….

“Unfortunately, your role has been eliminated,” wrote Beth Galetti, the top executive at Amazon’s human resources department, in one of the emails.

“You are no longer required to perform any work on Amazon’s behalf effective immediately.”

Furthermore, although it was “merely” part of an emailed announcement of planned layoffs and not an individual layoff notification, PagerDuty CEO Jennifer Tejada deserves a negative shoutout for closing her rambling missive by quoting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on the challenges of leadership, as reported by Aimee Picchi for CBS News, link here:

I am reminded in moments like this, of something Martin Luther King said, that “the ultimate measure of a [leader] is not where [they] stand in the moments of comfort and convenience, but where [they] stand in times of challenge and controversy.”

From exit parades to inboxes

Back in 2011, I noted the popularity of an inhumane, in-person mode for conducting layoffs, known in some circles as the “exit parade.” Typically, the about-to-be-terminated employee is directed to report promptly to the human resources office, where they are told that this is their last day of work and provided with any necessary documents accompanying the separation. They may be allowed to return to their desk to gather their belongings, sometimes under the watchful escort of a uniformed security officer, in full view of their co-workers.

Quoting from one of my law review articles, I called this practice a degradation ceremony, appearing “similar in nature, though admittedly not in degree, to archaic military disciplinary proceedings where transgressors are marched past other soldiers under armed guard to face their punishment. Yet in the case of the dismissed employee, her sole ‘transgression’ may have been being on the payroll at a time when profits were not high enough.”

Well, at least in terms of the personal touch, the exit parade may seem like a warm and fuzzy approach to terminations compared to how some managers and executives are hiding behind their screens to inform workers that they are no longer needed.

Evading responsibility, accountability, and, well, humanity

In an op-ed piece for the New York Times critical of these digital termination notices (link here), journalist Elizabeth Spiers wrote:

As someone who’s managed people in newsrooms and digital start-ups and has hired and fired people in various capacities for the past 21 years, I think this approach is not just cruel but unnecessary. It’s reasonable to terminate access to company systems, but delivering the news with no personal human contact serves only one purpose: letting managers off the hook. It ensures they will not have to face the shock and devastation that people feel when they lose their livelihoods. It also ensures the managers won’t have to weather any direct criticism about the poor leadership that brought everyone to that point.

Again: “not just cruel but unnecessary.” Given a second byte of the apple, so to speak, it appears that certain denizens of corporate America have continued to deliver hard news in an impersonal and cold way, only this time, it’s as easy as hitting the return key.

Healthy Workplace Bill reintroduced in Massachusetts legislature

I’m happy to share that here in Massachusetts, the anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill (HWB) has been reintroduced in the new, 2023-24 session of the Massachusetts legislature. We are delighted that Sen. Paul Feeney (D-Bristol & Norfolk), a stalwart voice for workers, is again the lead sponsor.

The HWB permits targets of severe workplace bullying to seek damages in court and creates liability-reducing incentives for employers to act preventively and responsively towards bullying behaviors at work.

Currently, the HWB (link here) is designated as Senate Docket No. 712 (SD.712). Later on, it will be given a bill number.

If you would like to see workplace bullying protections become a reality in Massachusetts, then please contact your state representative and state senator and urge them to co-sponsor the bill. If you do not know the name of your representative or senator, then you may click here to find out.

Changes in the newly-filed bill

The newly-filed HWB contains some modest changes that I have made in the template version of the bill, in response to ongoing conversations with employment lawyers and employee advocates. Most significantly, it removes a requirement of showing intent to cause harm or distress to the targeted employee. Instead, a plaintiff must show “intentional acts, omissions, or both, that a reasonable person would find abusive.” This remains consistent with an understanding that targeted, health-harming bullying — the abusive mistreatment that this bill seeks to address — is not due to accidental or unthinking behavior.

In addition, the new bill makes some minor changes to enable recovery of emotional distress damages even when the bullying has not culminated in a tangible employment decision, such as a termination or demotion.

Fair-minded legislation

That said, this version of the HWB still allows us to honestly represent to employers that this carefully-crafted bill does not legally micro-manage the workplace. Equally important, it does not set the bar to recovery so low that it can be easily misused by workplace bullies to sue their targets, or enable lawsuits and threats of lawsuits for lower-level incivilities or disagreements. Alternative proposals that are being touted by others would throw those doors wide open.

Indeed, in an era where voices from the extreme ends of the spectrum are sometimes the loudest, advocating for balanced, fair-minded solutions can be challenging. In this realm, doing nothing is not acceptable. In the U.S., workplace bullying continues to cause enormous harm to employees and employers alike, without any legal check. We need to address this void in our current employment laws. On the other hand, allowing lawsuits for everyday arguments, differences of opinion, and unwanted work assignments would create significant chaos in our workplaces.

It’s time for workplace bullying to become an unlawful employment practice. The Healthy Workplace Bill remains the best option toward that end.

Watch and learn: Video recordings of 2022 programs

 

Hello dear readers, I’m linking below video recordings of several programs in which I participated during 2022. I hope you’ll find something of interest!

• “Bullying and Incivility in the Academic Workplace” (March 2022) (link here) — I gave a presentation about “Bullying and Incivility in the Academic Workplace” to the Northeastern University College of Science in Boston, as part of a series on “Disrupting Academic Bullying.” I first cover bullying, mobbing, and incivility generally, then I examine these behaviors in academic workplaces.
• “Creating Healthy Workplaces Through Legislation” (April 2022) (link here) — At a conference hosted by the U.S. Department of the Navy and Howard University, I was invited to participate in a panel discussion on “Fostering Professional Climates and Cultures Through Accountability.” The conference was the 2022 “National Discussion on Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment at America’s Colleges, Universities and Service Academies.” I joined Rear Admiral Rebecca Patterson, Keetah Salazar-Thompson, and Kelley Bonner on this panel. My brief handout for the conference is posted here.
• “The WBI Story: Drs. Ruth & Gary Namie” (July 2022) (link here) — I had the privilege of interviewing Drs. Ruth and Gary Namie, co-founders of the Workplace Bullying Institute and long-time colleagues and friends, about the history of their pioneering work to address workplace bullying. This program was part of Gary’s Workplace Bullying Podcast series.
• “The Hero’s Call: Workplace Bullying” (Sept. 2022) (link here) — Suffolk Law alumnus and trial attorney Marc Diller extended an invitation to appear on his law firm’s video web series, The Hero’s Call. Marc and his colleague, Dr. John Naranja, asked me about my work around workplace bullying, the anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill, and associated activities in the field of therapeutic jurisprudence.
• “The Dignity of an Intellectual Life for All” (Oct. 2022) (link here) — I organized and hosted an interactive discussion featuring Zena Hitz (tutor, St. John’s College and author, Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life (2020)), followed by a responsive panel of distinguished educators, including Joseph Coulson, Hilda Demuth-Lutze, Linda Hartling, and Amy Thomas Elder. Hosted by Suffolk University Law School and co-sponsored by the Basic Program in Liberal Education for Adults at the University of Chicago, Harrison Middleton University, and the World Dignity University initiative of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies.

A case for therapeutic jurisprudence in legal education and the legal profession

University of Miami Law Review, 2021

University of Baltimore Law Review, 2021

This semester, I had one of my most enjoyable teaching experiences ever at Suffolk University Law School, via a unique course that I’ve designed called the “Law and Psychology Lab” (LPL), a four-credit, workshop-type offering that examines the intersection of law and psychology in ways that are relevant to legal practice, law reform, and the legal profession. The course explores law and psychology primarily through the lens of therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ), a multidisciplinary field of theory and practice that examines the therapeutic and anti-therapeutic properties of law and policy, legal processes, and legal institutions.

I’ve referenced TJ frequently on this blog. It has become a central framing theory for my work in drafting and advocating for legal protections against workplace bullying. It has also profoundly shaped the way in which I look at the law in general. In fact, from 2017-19, I served as the founding board chairperson of the International Society for Therapeutic Jurisprudence, a global, non-profit organization dedicated to public education about TJ.

I designed the LPL course to engage students in a variety of discussions, presentations, and projects. Ideally, it is intended to work best in an in-person format, with only occasional reliance on Zoom for specified reasons, such as guest speakers. However, after teaching the course the first three times either partially or all online due to the pandemic, this was the first offering that didn’t involve the ongoing use of Zoom to hold class.

Perhaps this is a reason why the course went so well this past fall. But the main reason is that we had a great blend of students who were eager to dig into the subject matter, engage one another in conversation, and keep an open mind toward new concepts and ideas. It was so gratifying to see the learning process unfold during the course of the semester. Among other things, it helped to underscore my belief that TJ has so much to offer in terms of reforming our laws and legal procedures and building our legal institutions. The ways in which my students discussed, applied, and even embraced TJ also illustrated its very practical utility; this is not highfalutin theory, disconnected from on-the-ground relevance.

I am now preparing to teach a very truncated version of the LPL during our one-week intersession period next week, a one-credit mini-course called “Introduction to Law and Psychology.” Although I would prefer to teach this course in an in-person format as well, I’ve opted to teach it online so that students will not have to return to campus a week earlier than their peers in order to enroll in it. Nevertheless, I hope this compact offering will provide students with some valuable insights and perspectives that will enhance their legal careers.

Law review articles

Bringing TJ into the law school classroom is partially what I had in mind when I wrote two law review articles that were published in 2021. I also wanted to provide legal educators and others with useful, accessible introductions to TJ.

The first was a lengthy, comprehensive survey of the field of therapeutic jurisprudence, titled “Therapeutic Jurisprudence: Foundations, Expansion, and Assessment,” University of Miami Law Review (2021) (free download, link here). Clocking in at over 90 pages, I use it as the primary text for the Law and Psychology Lab. The article has been very well-received with the TJ community and often is recommended to those who wish to gain an in-depth introduction to this field.

The second is a shorter piece, titled “Teaching Therapeutic Jurisprudence,” University of Baltimore Law Review (2021) (free download, link here), that offers ideas for incorporating TJ into the law school curriculum and makes bibliographic suggestions for reading assignments and research projects. This is now the primary text for the brief Introduction to Law and Psychology course mentioned above.

If you’d like to dip your toe in the world of TJ, then I recommend the University of Baltimore Law Review article. But if you’d like to jump and take a swim, then take a look at the University of Miami Law Review article.

***

Educators who would like to review the overall syllabi for the “Law and Psychology Lab” and “Introduction to Law and Psychology” courses may request copies from my staff assistant, Trish McLaughlin, at tmclaughlin@suffolk.edu. Please enter “Yamada Law and Psychology syllabi” in the subject line and provide your full name and institutional affiliation. Thank you!

Popular 2022 posts

Image courtesy of citypng.com

Hello dear readers, and welcome to the New Year! I collected ten of the most popular 2022 posts on work-related themes. If you missed them earlier or would like to take another look, then here’s your chance to read them:

• “Gaslighting” is the Merriam-Webster 2022 “word of the year” (Dec. 2022) (link here)
• Watching “Gaslight” (1944): One viewer’s guide (Oct. 2022) (link here)
• Workplace bullying and mobbing: Annotated recommended book list for 2022 (Aug. 2022) (link here)
• We need to dig beneath generic references to “toxic workplaces” (Aug. 2022) (link here)
• “The Wire” as work primer (July 2022) (link here)
• The Amy Wax situation: On academic freedom, diversity & inclusion, workplace mobbing, and cancel culture (July 2022) (link here)
• Dr. Martha Stout on outsmarting sociopaths (including those at work) (June 2022) (link here)
• On disability bullying (March 2022) (link here)
• Bullying, mobbing, and incivility in the healthcare workplace (Feb. 2022) (link here)
• A degrading money grab for classroom supplies in South Dakota (Jan. 2022) (link here)