As TV and movie crew members struggled to make ends meet during the 82-day actors strike that put them out of work, Sierra Bay Robinson hatched a plan to help.
Robinson is the business agent for International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 488. During the SAG-AFTRA strike, she heard story after story of Local 488 members turning to TaskRabbit.com to generate odd-job income. The online platform where people can advertise or hire freelance labor became so popular among out-of-work crew members that eventually TaskRabbit stopped accepting new sign-ups locally, she said.
So Robinson dreamed up her own platform, one that was completely by union members, for union members.
“There have been so many times when I’ve wanted something done around the house, and I know there’s somebody in our membership who can do that,” Robinson said. “I’d rather give my money to them first, but I might not remember their name. That was sort of the idea behind this.”
On Nov. 4, Local 488 launched CrewBunny, an online program through the union where members can make a “hire me” post to advertise their skills or a “help me” post about jobs they need done. It runs similarly to TaskRabbit, but CrewBunny doesn’t charge any registration fees or levy extra service charges on a job’s cost to keep money for the platform.
“It’s different because the union is completely uninvolved with any exchange of money. This is basically a ‘virtual bulletin board,’ although a very, very comprehensive and sophisticated one,” Robinson said.
Local 488 represents almost 750 workers in Washington, Oregon, Northern Idaho, and Montana. Its members include the camera operators, makeup artists, hair stylists, costume creators, and others who rely on TV and movie productions for their full time work.
The SAG-AFTRA strike that motivated Robinson to start CrewBunny ended just four days after the platform went live. Still, TV and movie work hasn’t returned fully for most crew members. That’s in part because winter is typically the down season, and in part because the actors strike was preceded by a writers strike that halted new scripts.
“The writers went back to work in September, so they are still writing new content to be greenlit to be filmed. They’re the first ones that touch the content … so we’re all waiting,” said Mug Schmidt, a costume designer and Local 488 member based in Seattle.
Schmidt signed up for CrewBunny to offer clothing alteration and pet sitting while waiting for large-scale productions to return to the Pacific Northwest. In December, Schmidt got a 12-day pet sitting gig that really made a difference.
“It’s unfortunate we need side gigs right now … but the economic reality of the situation is that we do,” Schmidt said. “So let’s help each other out and consider our union kin as someone who can fulfill needs around the house before we go elsewhere.”
Even when steady work returns, CrewBunny can help Local 488 members, Robinson said. Jobs in TV and film tend to be “cyclical,” with lots of productions in the summer but fewer in the winter. Eventually, she wants to open the platform to other IATSE locals and other unions.
