§10316 Trusts

Summary

An employer may take money from a seaman’s wages if the seaman gives written permission and two rules are followed. First, the money must go into a trust set up only for that employer’s seamen and their families, or into a trust shared with seamen from other employers and their families. Second, the trust can use the money or its earnings to pay for 7 kinds of benefits, including medical and hospital care, retirement or death pensions, life insurance, unemployment pay, job-related injury pay, sickness/accident/disability pay, and to buy insurance that provides these benefits.