The grieving mother of a young man who was killed while working for global meat giant JBS says the multi-billion-dollar company is refusing to pay for her son's funeral costs and ambulance bill.
WARNING: This story contains graphic details about injuries that some readers may find distressing.
Warwick Ranclaud suffered burns to 90 per cent of his body during a fire at a JBS facility in regional New South Wales five years ago.
The company was convicted and fined $300,000 over the accident.
A Four Corners investigation has found JBS Australia has an appalling track record in the workplace, repeatedly failing to protect its workers from death or serious injuries — including hand amputations and third-degree burns.
Warwick's mother Heather Ranclaud told Four Corners the corporation has turned its back on her family.
"Personally, I've only taken one call from JBS," Heather said.
"That was to tell me I could go out and pick up [Warwick's] burnt-out loader.
"I've had an invoice sent to them for the funeral expenses and the ambulance expense … and just a refusal."
JBS is the biggest meat company in Australia and the world, with annual revenue of $US65 billion.
The food company owns popular brands including Primo and Huon Aquaculture, supplies fast food chains such as McDonald's, and sells its products in supermarkets Coles, Woolworths and Aldi.
The corporate colossus has been exposed internationally for a litany of scandals including bribery and corruption in Brazil, price fixing in the United States and sourcing meat from illegally deforested land in the Amazon rainforest.
'It was negligence'
Warwick Ranclaud was working as a contractor at JBS' Caroona Feedlot, south-west of Tamworth, during the bushfire season of 2017.
The 36-year-old was hired to repair plant equipment and perform farm-hand duties.
It was a scorching summer, with heatwave conditions fuelling devastating fires in the region.
"The sky was glowing red day and night," Heather Ranclaud said.
"It was dry, hot… everybody was talking about it, I mean, it could not have been lost on anyone that the weather conditions were catastrophic."
In these conditions, a JBS manager working with Warwick started clearing a paddock with a tractor and sparked a grassfire.
"He didn't dial triple-0 as most people would do. He called Warwick," Heather said.
With the fire burning out of control, the manager asked Warwick to use his loader machine to create a fire break.
"The wind changed, the grassfire took off. It went under his loader and his machine was engulfed in fire," she said.
An ambulance was called and Warwick was later airlifted to Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital for treatment.
Warwick's family wasn't told about his accident until late that evening, depriving them of the chance to say goodbye.
"By the time we got to see him, he was in an induced coma," Heather said.
"That's something that sticks with us, we didn't get that chance to say goodbye while he was conscious."
Suffering burns to 90 per cent of his body, Warwick died after two days on life support.
JBS pleaded guilty to exposing its workers to a risk of death or serious injury and was convicted in November 2020.
During the court case, it was revealed there'd been two previous fires at the same site, sparked in very similar circumstances, in the three months leading up to Warwick's death.
The judge found these incidents "ought to have put [JBS] squarely on notice of the risks to their workers".
Instead, the company kept no record of the two previous fires and failed to train any of its staff around the danger.
"I feel it was negligence that, for goodness sake, they shouldn't have been out slashing in a heat wave," Heather said.
JBS Australia didn't answer Four Corners' questions about its worker safety failings or its refusal to pay Warwick's family for his funeral costs and the ambulance bill, which amounted to about $12,000.
In a statement, the company said it's "a proud Australian corporate citizen with a strong brand and reputation".
'It was messed up'
For 19-year-old John Kiriona-Hodge, a job in the gutting room of JBS' abattoir in Longford, Tasmania, was just a way to make some money.
"I'd be in there with all the stomachs and the beef stomachs and stuff, and I'd have to empty them out, clean them out, get them all ready to be washed and turned into tripe," he told Four Corners.
The gutting room was an accident waiting to happen.
After the tripe was rinsed in a tub of water, it often became stuck in the machinery.
Employees were given a step ladder and a pole to help dislodge it but when it wouldn't budge, John and other workers would have to climb onto the edge of the tub and use their hands instead.
One morning in November 2016, John slipped and fell into the near-boiling water.
"My left leg has gone into the water and I couldn't get out of the tub… so I had to pull my right leg in the water and then just walk a couple steps," John said.
"But my gum boots are now filled with boiling, like hot water and then I just start screaming. I climb out of this bloody tub that I'm in him because I'm the only person down there and I'm ripping my pants off and I'm screaming for water."
One of John's workmates who came to help doused his legs with cold water.
"But it was through a high-pressured hose," John said.
"He just [hosed] the skin, all the blisters on my legs. And then the bottoms of my feet were stuck to the concrete. It was rather brutal… It was messed up."
John suffered second and third degree burns from his feet up to his thighs.
For the past five years, he's been undergoing rehabilitation and still suffers from mental health issues as a result of the accident.
"I've got depression," he said.
"I have this weird PTSD phobia — a whole thing with hot water. And so for years, I'd only have cold showers."
John has received a pay-out of just under half a million dollars.
JBS pleaded guilty to two charges but was found not guilty of a recklessness charge.
A magistrate found JBS knew there was a safety problem with the sticking tripe and failed to fix it.
The company was fined $150,000.
"It's an insult really," John said.
"They've moved on, they've earned all the money back that they've lost on fines, they don't even think about it, it's brutal."
Six convictions in six years
An investigation by Four Corners has found JBS has been convicted at least six times in the past six years and fined almost $700,000 over serious safety breaches.
Three of those incidents involved employees being dragged into dangerous machinery. Their injuries have ranged from maimed limbs to amputated hands.
JBS' failure to protect its own staff dates back to 2009, when an 18-year-old died at one of the company's Queensland facilities.
Christopher Fenton was just six weeks into a new job when he was killed driving a forklift unlicensed and unsupervised late at night.
A Queensland Ombudsman report found the teenager was repeatedly able to use forklifts at JBS without intervention or any disciplinary action during his probation period.
Legal action against the company was recommended but never instigated.
Instead, his death prompted Workplace Health and Safety Queensland to issue a state-wide safety notice about safe forklift operation.
In New South Wales, JBS is facing prosecution after a female employee suffered a spinal fracture and internal injuries when she was crushed by two hay bales weighing 600 kilograms in February 2020.
The horrific accident occurred at the same feedlot where Warwick Ranclaud worked.
Heather Ranclaud says her son's death is "an absolute tragedy for us that is with us for the rest of our lives".
"I really feel if I had have acted in the way that they have acted, I think I would be in jail."
