Labor Department Final Rule Defines Recreation Vehicle For Longshore & Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act


The U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs has issued a final rule implementing the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act’s exclusion for recreational vessel workers. The rule defines what constitutes a “recreational vessel” when applying the exclusion.

The LHWCA provides workers (or their survivors in the case of death) compensation for injuries related to maritime employment on the navigable waters of the United States or adjoining areas. 

Before 2009, the LHWCA excluded workers who repaired or dismantled recreational vessels fewer than 65 feet in length from coverage if they were covered by a state workers’ compensation program. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 expanded this exclusion by eliminating the 65-foot limitation.  Now, workers who repair recreational vessels of any length or dismantle them for repair are excluded from LHWCA coverage if they are covered under a state workers’ compensation law.

The final rule generally uses the U.S. Coast Guard’s standards for defining a recreational vessel. However, it adds two provisions the Labor Department intends to make it easier to apply these standards in the LHWCA context. First, a manufacturer or builder may determine whether a vessel is recreational within the meaning of the regulation based on the vessel’s design rather than on its end use. Second, noncommercial vessels that are recreational by design and owned or chartered by the federal or a state government fall within the recreational vessel definition.

Read the final rule here.

For Help or More Information
If you need help with worker classification or other human resources or internal controls matters, please contact the author of this article, Cynthia Marcotte Stamer.  Board Certified in Labor & employment Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization,management attorney, author and consultant  Ms. Stamer is nationally and internationally recognized for more than 24 years of work helping private and governmental organizations and their management; employee benefit plans and their sponsors, administrators, fiduciaries; employee leasing, recruiting, staffing and other professional employment organizations; schools and other governmental agencies and others design, administer and defend innovative compliance, risk management, workforce, compensation, employee benefit, privacy, procurement and other management policies and practices. Her experience includes extensive work helping employers carry out, audit, manage and defend worker classification,union-management relations, wage and hour, discrimination and other labor and employment laws, procurement, conflict of interest, discrimination management, privacy and data security, internal investigation and discipline and other workforce and internal controls policies, procedures and actions. 
Widely published on worker classification and other workforce risk management and compliance concerns, the immediate past-Chair of the American Bar Association (ABA) RPTE Employee Benefits & Other Compensation Committee and current Co-Chair of its Welfare Plan Committee, Vice Chair of the ABA TIPS Section Employee Benefits Committee,  a Council Representative of the ABA Joint Committee on Employee Benefits, Government Affairs Committee Legislative Chair for the Dallas Human Resources Management Association, and past Chair of the ABA Health Law Section Managed Care & Insurance Interest Group, Ms. Stamer works, publishes and speaks extensively on management, worker classification, re-engineering, investigations, human resources and workforce, employee benefits, compensation, internal controls and risk management, federal sentencing guideline and other enforcement resolution actions, and related matters.  She also is recognized for her publications, industry leadership, workshops and presentations on these and other human resources concerns and regularly speaks and conducts training on these matters. Her insights on these and other matters appear in the Bureau of National Affairs, Spencer Publications, the Wall Street Journal, the Dallas Business Journal, the Houston Business Journal, and many other national and local publications. For additional information about Ms. Stamer and her experience or to access other publications by Ms. Stamer see here or contact Ms. Stamer directly.

Other Resources

If you found this update of interest, you also may be interested in reviewing some of the other updates and publications authored by Ms. Stamer available including:

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 10th, 2012 at 8:55 AM and is filed under Corporate Compliance, Employers, Fair Labor Standards Act, Human Resources, Internal Controls, Internal Investigations, Wage & Hour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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