Julie Bracero Kelly

Julie has worked in unions for about thirty years. She grew up in a political, union-organizing family and “spent a good portion of time after school in trailers, licking stamps and stuffing envelopes,” she said. Julie went to Boston University and was inspired by one of her professors, Howard Zinn, author of The People’s History of the United States. After college, she got a job at an OPEIU local in Cambridge Massachusetts, where she was primarily doing administrative political work, but then started taking phone calls. She remembers the exhilaration she felt knowing the union was making an impact in people’s everyday lives. At that union, Julie ended up being a rep and the Director of Organizing. Eventually, she wanted to come back to New York and got an opportunity to lead member leadership development programs and to organize. She went to work with UNITE and was the Assistant National Organizing Director. Julie then went to the Workers’ United New York New Jersey Joint Board and was ultimately elected Secretary Treasurer. She was later elected General Manager of the union, the position she holds now.