In 1927, the U.S. Congress enacted the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, which most people call the Longshore Act. The law was designed to provide workers’ compensation coverage for certain maritime workers, which essentially meant all people who work on or near the water, excluding actual crew members on a ship, who are covered under another federal law. The majority of individuals now covered by the Longshore Act are dock workers. Congress has amended the Longshore Act to include various other classes of workers, as well. The most significant such amendment was in 1972, when the act was extended to cover workers injured on dry land, as opposed to simply “upon the navigable waters of the United States.” The courts have afforded broad latitude in determining who is covered by the act.
Unlike Pennsylvania workers’ compensation law, the Longshore Act is administered by a division of the U.S. Department of Labor. Although a federal program, the Longshore Act is dissimilar from the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act (federal workers’ compensation), which provides compensation to all federal employees injured at work, other than to those who fall under specific federal compensation laws, like the Longshore Act.
