Introduction
The US federal law declares the purpose of this Act as to protect the US maritime commerce. The Act restricts the transportation of goods from and to US ports. The Act thus facilitates the growth of US foreign commerce in addition to US boarder defense. It further has a stipulation that the use has the need to ensure that it owns enough vessels to accommodate its bigger portion of marine commerce in addition to serving as naval and military supplementary in cases of emergencies and war. The Act dictates this transfer of maritime goods within US ports other than its flag bearing ships. The Act further stipulates that it’s only US made ships that can be US-flagged. The ship must be manned and owned by US permanent residents (Cedar River Group, 2011). It also exempts other foreign state from doing maritime commerce in US ports in that any ship with a maritime business in the US waters is required to bear the US corporate tax burden.
The Act through it October 6th, 2006 codification, formalized the Seamen’s rights of duty engagement. The Act legalizes sailors’ claims for compensation or makes necessary collections from their screw members, employer and captains out their negligent acts that cause harm to other sailors. The Act gives the employees a legal right to sue for any underlying damages. The Act provides compensation benefits to victims of negligent acts of any individual involved in the maritime industry to a short term limit of no-fault benefits. Long term benefits for disability, survivor and vocational training are not provided in the Act. Generally, the Jones act allows seamen who get sick or injured while in duty, three (3) no-fault medical benefits up to maximum medical fitness in addition to payment of wages unearned after the termination of the voyage (Cedar River Group, 2011).
References
Cedar River Group, LLC. (2011). Jones Act Review. Joint Transportation Committee
Washington State Legislature
http://www.leg.wa.gov/JTC/Documents/Studies/Ferry3/FinalJonesActReport.pdf
