| A new Washington Post investigation sheds light on serious allegations that John Braun’s manufacturing company embraced a “pretty lax” safety culture – resulting in the death of an employee, multiple child labor violations, an injured minor, and more.
Instead of striving for compliance with rules that keep minors safe, Braun decided to end an apprenticeship program, denying the next generation of workers experience in the trades.
Braun’s flagrant disregard for workers is also illustrated by his comment that workers “accepted the risks” of dangerous jobs following an explosion at a factory in Longview, WA that killed 11 people in Washington’s Third District.
DCCC Spokesperson Lindsay Reilly:
“Working Washingtonians deserve a leader in D.C. who looks out for them, not an executive who cuts corners and throws his hands up when he gets caught putting minors in harm’s way. Instead of fixing serious safety hazards and protecting his workers, John Braun shut down a youth apprenticeship program to avoid accountability. While Marie Gluesenkamp Perez fights for working people, Braun treats them as disposable.”
Read the bombshell reporting for yourself…
Washington Post: Inside a Republican’s business safety record, under scrutiny in key House race
- John Braun’s company, Braun Northwest, received three state citations for child labor violations in 2025… one of the teenagers was injured.
- The company’s safety practices concerned some workers, according to interviews with seven former employees.
- The state agency found the company improperly allowed a minor to work more than eight hours per day during a nonschool week on seven occasions and improperly allowed two minors to operate machinery, according to citation records.
- A 17-year-old operated a drill press, which the agency says is prohibited for minors to use without a barrier guard, and was injured when her glove was caught in the drill bit, the records say.
- Braun Northwest did not have an approved student learner variance, a temporary exception to normal work restrictions, for the minors to operate the drill press or the hammer drill, according to the records.
- Braun told The Post that the company… stopped participating in the apprenticeship program as a result.
- Karl Keller II, a 61-year-old vehicle assembler at Braun Northwest, died on the job in August 2024.
- Colten Keller, Karl Keller’s son who also worked for the company, said… he worried about Braun Northwest’s safety culture before the accident, including the drill press injury.
- Keller said it was difficult to work at the company after his father died. He quit in May 2025 after asking multiple times to not be around the employee who ran over his father.
- “I was told by my management that he was an employee too, and that at some point I’m just going to have to deal with it,” Keller said.
- [Keller] said “Braun never called” after his father died and “didn’t care about us.”
- A former welder of Braun Northwest… said safety was “pretty lax” and the company “had redneck ways of doing things.”
- The welder, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared retaliation in a small community where the company has major influence, said machinery was not consistently used in compliance with OSHA standards.
- Gluesenkamp Perez has criticized Braun’s voting record on workplace safety as a state senator.
- “It’s important that people have a clear picture of the candidates,” she said in an interview. “We deserve to be represented by people who respect us and who don’t view us as interchangeable or disposable labor.”
- One ad claimed that Braun “voted against workplace safety every time,” citing bills from 2019, 2021 and 2023.
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