Striking actors re-elect Fran Drescher as SAG-AFTRA president
Drescher handily beat opponent Maya Gilbert-Dunbar, who'd been calling for a swift resolution to the strike
She has style; she has flair; she has what can only be seen as an electoral mandate from the people: SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher has just been re-elected as president of the actors union, THR reports, maintaining her position as one of the most prominent voices supporting and pushing for the ongoing Hollywood strike.
Normally we don’t report on Hollywood union politics unless they get nasty in a particularly interesting way—which, it’s worth noting, Drescher’s first election, back in 2021, absolutely did, with opponent Matthew Modine threatening to sue her at one point as they battled out longstanding tensions in the guild. (Mostly over unhappiness over its last few contracts with the studios, which Drescher’s “party” was responsible for negotiating.) But normally there isn’t massive national attention on union leadership, either, with the fates of billion dollar companies hanging in the balance, so…
Not that there was any real drama to the election itself: In what can only be seen as a vote of clear confidence for their handling of the strike, Drescher has been re-elected president, while national secretary-treasurer Joely Fisher (who ran in opposition to Drescher last time) held on to her post, as well. Both wins were landslides, too: While Drescher beat Modine by less than 2,000 votes in 2021, this time she more than quadrupled the vote count of opponent Maya Gilbert-Dunbar—who argued in public statements that the strike should be “short and sweet,” and called for the union to bring in mediators to hammer out an early compromise with the studios. If nothing else, Drescher’s win can be seen as a pretty clear signal that the striking actors are willing to take the ongoing conflicts to the long and bitter end.
Drescher released a statement this weekend after her win, writing that,
I am honored to serve my union as president for another term. Much has been accomplished in the past two years but I feel great optimism that the next two will be our greatest ever! As we let go of tribalism and gain more empathy for one another, as we realize that with each experience comes opportunity to better ourselves on our journey of self-refinement, we will also enter a golden age for SAG-AFTRA.