In SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher’s first Letter From the President in the Fall/Winter 2021 issue of SAG-AFTRA magazine, she wrote, “Only in unity can we champion our goals.”
Those words now feel like the thesis statement of Drescher’s presidency. And in a role that required achieving agreement among the diverse Negotiating Committee — a group made up of dozens of members with differing careers and backgrounds — she understood the importance of every individual feeling like they mattered.
The task of navigating and appealing to a multitude of temperaments takes a unique combination of interpersonal savvy and hard-to-define finesse, but one tactic that proved successful time and again was ensuring everyone felt like their voice was heard and that their perspective was important. This has often meant letting each committee member speak longer than their allotted time, and encouraging everyone to reach across the table and find something they shared in common with each other. The result was a negotiating team capable of forming a unified front as they introduced and fought for the most aggressive proposal package in entertainment industry history.
Unstoppable commitment, dedication to serving the membership, and courage were a few of the words SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland used to describe President Drescher during the Nov. 11 press conference announcing the National Board’s vote to approve the TV/Theatrical tentative agreement reached with the AMPTP.
“When we fight each other because of partisanship, then somebody wins, but it’s not us,” Drescher said to reporters. “I felt like the only way to bring this union together was to come in without bias ... to leave my door open to every single one of the members, so that I could hear what they had to say. What came out of that was the beginning of trust. It was, what I call ‘The Fran Plan’ and the ‘Secret Sauce,’ which is time and patience.”
As the weeks of the strike wore on and the AMPTP finally returned to the bargaining table, the hours were long and the discussions grew increasingly contentious.
“As families do, with our Negotiating Committee, sometimes we would laugh, sometimes we would hug, sometimes we would cry, sometimes we would yell. Each step of the way, we grew towards each other into what I am calling ‘the nucleus of the Golden Age for SAG-AFTRA,” Drescher said.
Whether at convention or at the many press conferences and rallies held throughout 2023, Drescher has spoken time and again of the potential for SAG-AFTRA to enter a Golden Age. For her, this means leveraging the momentum she has spearheaded into a force for the greater good. Among her ambitions in the months ahead: rallying support for IATSE, AFM and the Teamsters when their contracts are up for negotiations; advocating for legislation that protects individuals from being exploited by artificial intelligence technology; and continuing the push for industry change that will keep motion picture production sustainable as a livelihood for hundreds of thousands of workers. She also understands the importance of her position as a role model for women and girls, and she’s eager to push back against misogyny and stereotypes.
She called the sexism she experienced during negotiations “low-hanging fruit,” and said, “I think it should be beneath anyone.”
The heart-shaped plushie she carried that became a source of ridicule by some in the press became a trend among SAG-AFTRA members on the picket lines throughout the final weeks of the strike, with fuzzy heart-shaped pins and heart cartoons showing up in various forms on picketers’ signs and attire.
Drescher’s commitment to authenticity is a symbol of empowerment. And in an industry that often places emphasis on fitting a certain type or conforming to employers’ expectations, President Drescher embodies defiance. Her fearlessness in the face of corporate power has resulted in revolutionary gains: an entirely new compensation model for SAG-AFTRA members in the form of the new bonus fund for performers whose work is distributed on streaming platforms, wage increases that broke the AMPTP’s pattern of bargaining, and AI protections that can be used by other unions in their own negotiations.
As Drescher came to the conclusion of her Nov. 11 speech, she said of SAG-AFTRA, “We began this journey as the largest entertainment union in the world and we finished it the most powerful.”
With SAG-AFTRA’s gains paving the way for other industry unions to enter employer negotiations with the knowledge that the AMPTP’s pattern of wage increases is a negotiating tactic and not necessarily an immovable boundary, SAG-AFTRA, under President Drescher’s leadership, has made its power clear.
This item was originally featured in the SAG-AFTRA fall/winter 2023 magazine issue.