How many hours do I need to qualify for Container Royalty?

It depends on your port. The Master Contract does not set one hours test. In Hampton Roads the HRSA-ILA fund requires at least 1,300 hours or credits in the contract year. In Baltimore the STA-ILA fund requires at least 700 hours, plus 700 hours in five of six consecutive contract years to get in.

When is Container Royalty paid?

Each port fund sets its own date. The HRSA-ILA fund in Hampton Roads pays by direct deposit on or about December 1. The STA-ILA fund in Baltimore distributes in December.

What is the Container Royalty contract year?

October 1 to September 30 in both the HRSA-ILA and STA-ILA plan documents. Hours in that year decide whether you qualify for the payment that follows.

Does workers' comp count toward Container Royalty hours?

In Hampton Roads, temporary total or temporary partial workers' comp earns pro rata credit for the weeks you receive it, but short-term disability and permanent disability do not. In Baltimore, injury or sickness is credited at 40 hours for each week of total disability, limited to two consecutive contract years in most cases.

How is my Container Royalty amount worked out?

In both Hampton Roads and Baltimore, the fund takes what it collected for the year, subtracts administration costs and a reserve, and divides it equally among eligible members. The fund decides the amount, not the member.

Container Royalty: how ILA members qualify, port by port

Container Royalty is a once-a-year cash payment to ILA longshoremen, funded by a charge on containerized cargo that isn't stuffed or stripped by ILA labor. The USMX-ILA Master Contract creates the money. Your port's royalty fund decides who qualifies and when it pays.

That last part is the one most people miss. There is no single coastwide hours number for Container Royalty. Here is what the contract says, and what two port funds that publish their rules actually require.

What the Master Contract sets

Container Royalties are Article XII of the USMX-ILA Master Contract. Section 1 covers the First and Third Container Royalties, "each in the amount of $1.00 per weight ton of containerized cargo not stuffed or stripped by ILA-represented labor." That money is paid to the local port and district royalty funds and "shall be used to provide supplemental-wage benefits to eligible employees."

The Second Container Royalty goes to MILA, the health plan, not to members as cash (Article XII, Section 2). A Central Collection Fund collects all of it and sends it where it goes (Section 4).

The 2024-2030 Memorandum of Settlement keeps the money in the port it came from: each year, the royalty benefits payable in a port "shall be equal to the amount of First and Third Container Royalties collected in that port, after the payment of all necessary expenses." Each local fund pays its own expenses.

What you won't find in the Master Contract: an hours test, a qualifying formula, or a payment date. Those are set fund by fund.

Hampton Roads: 1,300 hours

The HRSA-ILA Container Royalty fund's Summary Plan Description (2023) is the clearest rulebook we have.

The year. Benefits are decided "at the end of each contract year, which runs from October 1 of one year to September 30 of the next."

The floor. "You are not eligible to receive the benefit if you do not have a minimum of 1,300 hours or credits during a contract year."

Getting in the first time. The SPD gives paths. For members hired October 1, 2018 or later, one path is three years in the industry, 3,000 or more hours total, and 1,300 hours in the qualifying year. Another is six years in the industry with 1,000 or more hours in five of those six years and 1,300 in the qualifying year. Qualifying for six weeks of vacation also qualifies you. The paths don't all pay the same share, so read the SPD table for yours.

What counts. Work hours, plus credit for "temporary total or temporary partial worker's compensation, and active duty military service." Comp credit only runs for the weeks you actually receive comp. The SPD is blunt about what doesn't count: "No credit hours are granted from short term disability benefits, permanent total or permanent partial workers' compensation disability benefits or from lump sum compensation settlements."

Break in service. Three straight contract years of zero hours and you have to qualify all over again.

When it pays. An Eligibility Certificate comes in November. Payment is by direct deposit "on or about December 1."

How much. "The total money collected minus administrative expenses and a small reserve is divided by the number of eligible participants."

Retiring. You get three more payments after retirement if you qualified in the year of, or the year before, your retirement date. You're treated as retired on the day your application goes to the HRSA-ILA Pension Plan.

Baltimore: 700 hours, five of six years

The STA-ILA Container Royalty fund's SPD runs on the same October 1 to September 30 contract year, with a very different bar.

The test. "An employee who works at least 700 hours under the Contract in a Contract Year will be eligible for the container royalty benefit payment made for that year," provided you were eligible for a year ending in 1971, 1972 or 1973, or you "worked at least 700 hours under the Contract in at least five out of six consecutive Contract Years after September 30, 1973." In plain terms, 700 hours this year, and 700 in five of six consecutive years to be in at all.

Injury and sickness. "Credited as time worked at the rate of 40 hours for each week of total disability." Not for more than two consecutive contract years, unless you're temporarily and totally disabled under workers' comp, and not after you retire under the STA-ILA Pension Plan.

How much. "Each eligible employee receives the same amount of benefits": contributions and interest for the year, less administration and a reserve, divided by the number of eligible employees.

When. "During the month of December each year," with a possible supplementary payment if tonnage money is still coming in.

Every other port

New York and New Jersey, the South Atlantic, Florida, the Gulf: each has a royalty fund and each sets its own qualifying rules. The documents we hold for those ports don't publish the hours test, so we're not going to guess at one here. If your port's fund has sent you a summary plan description or a qualifying notice, that's the rulebook. Your local and the fund office are the people to ask.

What holds in both funds above: the qualifying year is the contract year, and it closes September 30.

Why we don't print payout amounts

Royalty payouts change every year with tonnage, by port, and some funds pay different shares to different members. Any number in a blog post is wrong by next December. Your fund's notice is the only figure that counts.

How DockBook tracks it

DockBook's Container Royalty tracker counts your credited hours on the October contract year so you can see where you stand before September 30. It's part of DockBook Pro for ILA members. It tracks hours, not dollars, because the dollars are your fund's math. If your hours look close to your port's line, check them against your fund's records early.