Last week, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined Smithfield Foods for failing to protect workers at its Sioux Falls, South Dakota pork processing plant from coronavirus . The plant had been the site of one of the countrys worst COVID-19 hotspots in the country. Four workers died and more than 1,200 others were infected.

The fine: $13,494 .

When Sandra Sibert clocked-in at the pork plant after the fine became public, she was curious to know what her colleagues thought of the long-awaited penalty.

They said, It seems like a joke, said Sibert, 47, who works in the ham-bone department and serves as a union shop steward. Thirteen thousand dollars? Thats nothing for Smithfield.

Indeed, the fine is nothing more than a rounding error budget dust for an operation of Smithfields size, whose parent company, China-based WH Group, had profits of nearly $1.4 billion last year.

Nonetheless, a Smithfield spokeswoman called the OSHA fine wholly without merit, and said the company plans to appeal.

The coronavirus pandemic has confronted OSHA with its biggest test since the agency was created in 1971 . But workplace safety experts say that under the Trump administratio ns leadership, the agency is shirking its oversight of employers and leaving workers to fend for themselves amid a health crisis that has killed roughly 200,000 Americans , many of whom contracted the virus at work.

This is far and away the most significant worker safety crisis in OSHAs history, and OSHA has failed to step up to the plate, said David Michaels, who ran the agency during the Obama administration. OSHA has failed to use really any of its powers to address it.... Its hard to take OSHA seriously.

The agency, part of the Labor Department, has declined to issue any temporary emergency standards to deal with the pandemic, despite pleas from experts like Michaels. Such standards would help OSHA crack down on dangerous employers. The guidance it has put out is essentially voluntary, with few legal ramifications for companies that disregard it.

Nor do employers need to worry much about an OSHA inspector banging on their doors. The agency has received 8,856 complaints related to coronavirus, according to Labor Department data through Sept. 15, but has opened only 184 workplace inspections as a result of them. Thats one inspection for every 48 complaints.

The announcement of several relatively tiny fines against employers has done little to quell the uproar over OSHAs performance. In addition to citing Smithfield, last week the agency levied two fines against Brazil-based JBS, the largest meat producer in the world. The JBS plant in Greeley, Colorado, lost eight workers to COVID-19. The penalties amounted to just $15,615. Family members of one worker who died, Saul Sanchez, told CBS Denver they spent a greater sum on his funeral .

A Labor Department spokesperson said the agency has been working around the clock to protect workers, and that its using the rules that are already on the books to hold employers accountable. The inspections done during the pandemic have helped keep 605,000 workers safe, according to the agency. OSHA has issued 21 coronavirus-related citations so far.

OSHA inspectors will not close a case if they have identified any potential citations, the spokesperson said. OSHA will continue to enforce the law and offer guidance to employers and employees to keep Americas workplaces safe.

According to Mark Lauritsen, head of the food processing division at the United Food and Commercial Workers union, the minor fines send the message that even when inspections occur, no real consequences will result for deep-pocketed corporations that put workers at risk. Lauritsens union represents workers at both the Smithfield and JBS plants, and COVID-19 has claimed the lives of more than 120 meatpacking members nationwide since March.

The meager penalties are not going to change the habits of anybody, and thats the point of a fine from OSHA: To change habits, said Lauritsen. This is a further abdication of its responsibility.

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OSHA struggles to fulfill its mission even in good times. At its current funding level, it would take 165 years for the agency to inspect every workplace under its jurisdiction even once, according to the AFL-CIO, the labor federation that advocates for its 55 member unions. Due to attrition under the Trump administration, OSHAs roster of inspectors fell to its lowest level in decades at the start of this year just 862 to monitor the private sector throughout most of the country.

Experts say those shortcomings make it all the more important that the agency act aggressively and creatively with the resources it has something they havent seen it do six months into the pandemic.

All these things they could be doing, theyre not, said Peg Seminario, who served as head of the AFL-CIOs safety and health department for nearly 30 years before retiring in 2019. This is not a resource issue on COVID. Theyre not using the basic tools that they have.

It would be impossible for OSHA to send out an inspector to look at every workplace for which they receive a complaint, especially when the volume of hazards has exploded. And while initiating just 184 inspections based on complaints so far looks bad, Michaels, the former OSHA head, cautioned that the agency has no choice but to pick and choose where to use limited staff, and must still investigate hazards not involving coronavirus.

But Debbie Berkowitz, a former policy advisor at OSHA during the Obama years, said shes troubled by how many of the agencys investigations appear to be of the phone and fax variety. Thats when investigators ask a company to respond in writing to a complaint, rather than visit a worksite and poke around. Such cases are typically closed quickly without an on-the-ground inspection.

OSHA is not doing what OSHA usually does, which is get a complaint, knock on the door and go in, said Berkowitz, now a work safety expert at the Washington-based National Employment Law Project. Theyre not going onsite and talking to workers.

That was the scenario that played out after Maria Martinez, a McDonalds worker in Chicago, sent OSHA a complaint in July.

She and a co-worker got help from the Fight for $15, the union-backed campaign to improve working conditions in the fast-food industry, as they reported a host of alleged problems at their site. They said that management provided them with a single mask each day that they would quickly sweat through, and that they had been charged $5 apiece for additional masks. They said they worked on top of one another in the crowded kitchen, and employees temperatures werent always checked before their shifts.

In June, a Cook County judge had ruled that McDonalds wasnt enforcing its mask policies and training workers in line with Illinois social-distancing rules. The judge ordered the stores to adopt certain safety measures.

Martinez told HuffPost that her supervisor told her not to worry about the virus even though several of her colleagues had tested positive.

The workers asked OSHA for an immediate inspection. But documents show the agency categorized the complaint as non-formal a category unlikely to result in an inspector coming onsite. Instead, OSHA sent McDonalds a letter asking it to address the claims. The company denied the allegations in a five-page letter laying out its policies and asserting that all workers were wearing masks and gloves and following social-distancing guidelines.

OSHA seemed satisfied. With this information, an official wrote in a followup letter to Martinezs representative, OSHA feels the case can be closed .

McDonalds said in a statement to HuffPost that the safety of employees and customers at McDonalds has been, and continues to be, a top priority. We are pleased that OSHA found in its review that these allegations are without merit, and as a result, closed the complaint.

Getting inspections have proved difficult even at meatpacking plants, which have been home to some of the countrys biggest COVID-19 clusters. The UFCW estimated that more than 17,000 meatpacking workers have been infected by or exposed to the virus.

An April 13 OSHA memo prioritized inspections for high or very-high risk workplaces, which included nursing homes and health care facilities. Meat processing facilities were placed in the medium risk bucket, which meant that complaints will not normally result in an on-site inspection.