[Code of Federal Regulations]
[Title 29, Volume 3]
[Revised as of July 1, 2004]
From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access
[CITE: 29CFR783.29]

[Page 655-656]
 
                             TITLE 29--LABOR
 
         CHAPTER V--WAGE AND HOUR DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
 
PART 783_APPLICATION OF THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT TO EMPLOYEES EMPLOYED 
AS SEAMEN--Table of Contents
 
Sec. 783.29  Adoption of the exemption in the original 1938 Act.

    (a) The general pattern of the legislative history of the Act shows 
that Congress intended to exempt, as employees ``employed as'' seamen, 
only workers performing water transportation services. The original bill 
considered by the congressional committees contained no exemption for 
seamen or other transportation workers. At the joint hearings before the 
Senate and House Committees on Labor, representatives of the principal 
labor organizations representing seamen and other transportation workers 
testified orally and by writing that the peculiar needs of their 
industry and the fact that they were already under special governmental 
regulation made it unwise to bring them within the scope of the proposed 
legislation (see Joint Hearings before Senate Committee on Education and 
Labor and House Committee on Labor on S. 2475 and H.R. 7200, 75th Cong., 
1st sess., pp. 545, 546, 547, 549, 1216, 1217). The committees evidently 
acquiesced in this view and amendments were accepted (81 Cong. Rec. 
7875) and subsequently adopted in the law, exempting employees employed 
as seamen (sec. 13(a)(3)), certain employees of motor carriers (sec. 
13(b)(1)), railroad employees (sec. 13(b)(2)), and employees of carriers 
by air (sec. 13(a)(4), now sec. 13(b)(3)).
    (b) That the exemption was intended to exempt employees employed as 
``seamen'' in the ordinary meaning of that word is evidenced by the fact 
that the chief proponents for the seamen's

[[Page 656]]

exemption were the Sailors Union of the Pacific and the National 
Maritime Union. The former wrote asking for an exemption for ``seamen'' 
for the reason that they were already under the jurisdiction of the 
Maritime Commission pursuant to the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 (Joint 
Hearings before the Committees on Labor on S. 2475 and H.R. 7200, 75th 
Cong., 1st sess., pp. 1216, 1217). The representative of the latter 
union also asked that ``seamen'' be exempted for the same reason saying 
* * * ``We feel that in a general interpretation of the whole bill that 
the way has been left open for the proposed Labor Standards Board to 
have jurisdiction over those classes of workers who are engaged in 
transportation. While this may not have an unfavorable effect upon the 
workers engaged in transportation by water, we feel that it may conflict 
with the laws now in effect regarding the jurisdiction of the government 
machinery now set up to handle these problems'' (id. at p. 545). And he 
went on to testify, ``What we would like is an interpretation of the 
bill which would provide a protective clause for the `seamen' '' (id. at 
p. 547).
    (c) Consonant with this legislative history, the courts in 
interpreting the phrase ``employee employed as a seaman'' for the 
purpose of the Act have given it its commonly accepted meaning, namely, 
one who is aboard a vessel necessarily and primarily in aid of its 
navigation (Walling v. Bay State Dredging and Contracting Co., 149 F. 2d 
346; Walling v. Haden, 153 F. 2d 196; Sternberg Dredging Co. v. Walling, 
158 F. 2d 678). In arriving at this conclusion the courts recognized 
that the term ``seaman'' does not have a fixed and precise meaning but 
that its meaning is governed by the context in which it is used and the 
purpose of the statute in which it is found. In construing the Fair 
Labor Standards Act, as a remedial statute passed for the benefit of all 
workers engaged in commerce, unless exempted, the courts concluded that 
giving a liberal interpretation of the meaning of the term ``seaman'' as 
used in an exemptive provision of the Act would frustrate rather than 
accomplish the legislative purpose (Helena Glendale Ferry Co. v. 
Walling, 132 F. 2d 616; Walling v. Bay State Dredging and Contracting 
Co., supra; Sternberg Dredging Co. v. Walling, supra; Walling v. Haden, 
supra).