FILE - In this May 20, 2020, file photo, residents cheer and hold thank you signs to greet employees of a Smithfield pork processing plant as they begin their shift in Sioux Falls, S.D. Smithfield called many employees back to work after it closed the plant for more than three weeks because of a coronavirus outbreak that infected over 800 employees. (AP Photo/Stephen Groves, File)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Federal recommendations meant to keep meatpacking workers safe as they return to plants that were shuttered by the coronavirus have little enforcement muscle behind them, fueling anxiety that working conditions could put employees’ lives at risk.

Extensive guidance issued last month by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that meatpacking companies erect physical barriers, enforce social distancing and install more hand-sanitizing stations, among other steps. But the guidance is not mandatory.

“It’s like, ‘Here’s what we’d like you to do. But if you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to,'” said Mark Lauritsen, international vice president and director of the food processing and meatpacking division for the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.

The pandemic is “the most massive workers’ safety crisis in many decades, and OSHA is in the closet. OSHA is hiding,” said David Michaels, an epidemiologist who was the agency’s assistant secretary of labor under President Barack Obama. Michaels called on OSHA to make the guidelines mandatory and enforceable, which would include the threat of fines.

OSHA’s general guidance plainly says the recommendations are advisory and “not a standard or regulation,” and they create “no new legal obligations.”

But the guidance also says employers must follow a law known as the general duty clause, which requires companies to provide a workplace free of recognized hazards. Critics say that rule is unlikely to be enforced, especially after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in April aimed at keeping meat plants open.

Already, examples have emerged of questionable enforcement efforts and pressure to keeping plants running:

≤Shortly before Trump’s order, state regulators in Iowa declined to inspect a Tyson Foods pork plant despite a complaint alleging workers had been exposed to the virus in crowded conditions. Documents obtained by The Associated Press show it took the Iowa division of OSHA nine days to seek a response from Tyson and eight more to get a reply.

The state agency ultimately found Tyson’s voluntary efforts to improve social distancing at the Perry plant were “satisfactory” and closed the case without an inspection. A week later, 730 workers — almost 60% of the workforce — had tested positive.

≤In Kansas, the state softened its quarantine guidelines after industry executives pushed to allow potentially exposed employees to continue going to work, according to emails and text messages obtained by The Kansas City Star and The Wichita Eagle. The state had previously advised such employees to quarantine for two weeks, before conforming to the more lenient CDC guideline, which allows employees to continue working if they have no symptoms and use precautions.

The move came after Tyson raised a concern with the state of rising worker absenteeism.

After Trump’s executive order — developed with input from the industry — the Labor Department and OSHA said OSHA would use discretion and consider “good faith attempts” to follow safety recommendations.

Employers would be given a chance to explain if some are not met. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue made clear in letters earlier this month that the Department of Agriculture expected state and local officials to work with meat plants to keep them running.

And he said any closed plants without a timetable to reopen had to submit protocols to the USDA.