[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: 29CFR783.33]

[Page 657]
 
                             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. 783.33  Employment ``as a seaman'' depends on the work actually 
performed.

    Whether an employee is ``employed as a seaman'', within the meaning 
of the Act, depends upon the character of the work he actually performs 
and not on what it is called or the place where it is performed (Walling 
v. Haden, 153 F. 2d 196; Cuascut v. Standard Dredging Corp., 94 F. Supp. 
197). Merely because one works aboard a vessel (Helena Glendale Ferry 
Co. v. Walling, 132 F. 2d 616; Walling v. Bay State Dredging & 
Contracting Co., 149 F. 2d 346), or may be articled as a seaman (see 
Walling v. Haden, supra), or performs some maritime duties (Walling v. 
Bay State Dredging & Contracting Co., 149 F. 2d 346; Anderson v. 
Manhattan Lighterage Corp., 148 F. 2d 971) one is not employed as a 
seaman within the meaning of the Act unless one's services are rendered 
primarily as an aid in the operation of the vessel as a means of 
transportation, as for example services performed substantially as an 
aid to the vessel in navigation. For this reason it would appear that 
employees making repairs to vessels between navigation seasons would not 
be ``employed as'' seamen during such a period. (See Desper v. Starved 
Rock Ferry Co., 342 U.S. 187; but see Walling v. Keansburg Steamboat 
Co., 162 F. 2d 405 in which the seaman exemption was allowed in the case 
of an article employee provided he also worked in the ensuing navigation 
period but not in the case of unarticled employees who only worked 
during the lay-up period.) For the same and other reasons, stevedores 
and longshoremen are not employed as seamen. (Knudson v. Lee & Simmons, 
Inc., 163 F. 2d 95.) Stevedores or roust-abouts traveling aboard a 
vessel from port to port whose principal duties require them to load and 
unload the vessel in port would not be employed as seamen even though 
during the voyage they may perform from time to time certain services of 
the same type as those rendered by other employees who would be regarded 
as seamen under the Act.