§ 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)).