The Longshore and Harbor Workers Compensation Act (LHWCA) helps provide coverage against injuries caused by negligence of employers against dock and maritime workers. The LHWCA was passed because of the large number of injuries around harbor places, which were not covered by the Jones Act or even state workers compensation.
Description and Enforcement
Employers who fail to meet their responsibility to pay into the LHWCA fund may face misdemeanor charges. The job of enforcing the LHWCA typically falls to the federal government. Because the federal government enforces the LHWCA, states can usually keep their workers’ compensation rules from applying to areas like waterfronts, and safely pass costs for maritime injuries to the federal LHWCA.
As defined in the LHWCA, "injury" means "accidents or injury or death arising out of and in the course of employment, and such occupational disease or infection as arises naturally out of such employment or as naturally or unavoidably results from such accidental injury."
Both compensation and medical care to employees disabled from injuries are provided for by the act. The LHWCA also gives cash benefits to dependents, if an injury causes an employee’s death. The coverage for any injury also includes occupational diseases, if the injuries came mostly out of the maritime employment.
Challenges and Process
Defining non-seamen who can be injured in maritime work is complicated. As such, the LHWCA stipulates coverage only for physical injuries sustained by non-ocean-going seamen. The key factor is the amount of time spent in performing work that is 'maritme' in nature, though generally less than 30% of their time may be spent as an ocean-going seaman. The non-seamen usually covered by the act are: longshoremen, transportation workers and truckers, shipbuilders, and possibly even tradesmen who may, for instance, be doing wallpaper hanging on a cruise ship. There are, however, many people working in maritme employment whom the act does not cover, such as employees of the US government, ships masters, and employees who are normally covered by state workers compensation, even if they work for a “maritime” company (e.g., secretaries, restaurant employees, clubs or camps on the waterfront, or even aquaculture workers).
The LHWCA requires workers to submit claims within thirty days of being hurt, and the injury should be reported to the employer as well. Within one year, a special LHWCA claim must also be filed with the federal Department of Labor. One of the great features of the act is that if the employer disputes their liability, a mandatory “conciliation” process takes over, to try and reach a fair agreement. If conciliation does not work, the next step is an administrative hearing where both sides must offer more formal legal arguments.