PMA Welfare hour thresholds: what it takes to keep your health coverage

Coverage under the ILWU-PMA Welfare Plan isn't automatic. It's earned in hours, reviewed once a year on July 1, with a second chance on January 1 if you missed the first cut. The number of hours you need depends on your Assigned Port. Cross the deadline without hitting the threshold and your family loses medical coverage until the next review window.

The mechanics are laid out in the ILWU-PMA Welfare Plan SPD. Here's how the rules actually read.

Two port classes, two sets of numbers

The Plan splits every Pacific Coast port into one of two buckets: Major Port or Minor Port. The thresholds are different on purpose. Major ports run higher volume and higher hours per registered member, so the bar is higher. Minor ports run lighter, so the bar is set roughly 40% lower to reflect the realistic workload available there.

Major Ports are spelled out in the SPD §9: the Los Angeles / Long Beach Harbor Area, the San Francisco Bay Area, the Portland / Vancouver Area, and the Seattle Area, plus any other port not classified as Minor. Any port outside those four named areas is Major or Minor depending on the annual Trustee review. If your port isn't one of those four, the Plan office is the source of truth for how you're classified in the current review year.

Minor Ports are defined by a statistical test in SPD §9. A port is Minor if, of the registered employees assigned to it who worked or received PGP credits for at least 100 hours in the review period, 25% or more worked fewer than 800 hours. The classification is recomputed by the Trustees each year, so a port that was Minor last year can be Major this year and vice versa as the work mix shifts.

If you don't know which class your port is in, that's question one for your local Plan office. Every threshold below depends on it.

The Annual Review (July 1)

This is the main test. Per SPD §2.1, the Trustees look at your covered employment record for the Payroll Year preceding July 1 and decide whether you've earned the next 12 months of coverage.

For a Major Port, you qualify for 12 months of coverage starting July 1 if, in the preceding Payroll Year:

• you worked or were credited with at least 800 hours, OR
• you worked or were credited with at least 400 hours in the last half of that Payroll Year.

For a Minor Port, the same test runs at lower numbers:

• at least 480 hours in the preceding Payroll Year, OR
• at least 240 hours in the last half of that Payroll Year.

(SPD §2.1, eligibility table.)

The "last half" alternative is the rule a lot of guys overlook. If you had a slow first half and a strong finish, the back-half-only test can save you even if your full-year total falls short of the headline number.

The Mid-year Review (January 1)

If the July 1 review came back ineligible, you get a second look on January 1. Per SPD §2.2, the Trustees review the first half of the preceding Payroll Year for anyone who didn't qualify at the Annual Review, and award 6 months of coverage starting January 1 if you cleared the bar.

• Major Port: at least 400 hours in the first half of the preceding Payroll Year.
• Minor Port: at least 240 hours.

The Mid-year Review is a half-year test for a half-year of coverage. It doesn't get you all the way back to a 12-month run, but it closes the gap until the next Annual Review.

What "Payroll Year" actually means

This trips people up because "Payroll Year" doesn't mean calendar year. It's a defined term the Trustees administer, and every threshold above is measured against it. PMA publishes the operating payroll calendar each year, and it's what your paystub weeks and PGP weeks already run on. Practical takeaway: when you're tracking hours against a Welfare threshold, you're tracking them against the Payroll Year that PMA payroll uses, not Jan-to-Dec on your wall calendar. If you're unsure which weeks fall into which review period, the Plan office or your local can confirm.

What counts as hours

Worked longshore hours are the obvious input. Less obvious:

• Pay Guarantee Plan (PGP) payments count. Per SPD §2.3, PGP payments you were eligible for during the review period get converted to credit hours using the formula: PGP dollars ÷ hourly straight-time wage rate. That credit goes toward the same hours bar as worked time. So a slow stretch where PGP carried you doesn't necessarily wipe out your Welfare eligibility.
• Certified disability can credit additional hours under specific rules in §2.4. There's a 25% floor (Rule 1) and a separate path if you were eligible right before the review and got hurt during it (Rule 2), with a maximum 5-year window for job-connected injuries and 3 years otherwise. This is the section to read carefully if a disability is in play. The math depends on whether the injury is job-connected and how long the certified disability runs.
• Authorized Leave of Absence of less than 90 days is credited on the same basis as Rule 1 disability credits (§2.5).

What doesn't count: hours you didn't work and weren't otherwise credited for under one of the rules above. The Welfare Plan and the Pension Plan are separate plans with separate hour-counting rules. Don't carry over assumptions from one to the other.

If you're newly registered for only part of the lookback period, there's a special rule in §3: 400 hours (casual hours included) across the two preceding payroll quarters gets you 6 months of coverage starting at the next calendar quarter, until your first full Annual Review.

What "coverage" actually means here

Once you've cleared the threshold, the Welfare Plan extends to you and your eligible dependents. The benefit programs include hospital / medical / surgical, life and AD&D, prescription drug, dental, vision, chiropractic, hearing aids, CPAP, and others. The full coverage matrix is in SPD §6.1.

I'm not going to list dollar amounts for any of these here. Welfare benefit levels (life and AD&D maximums, vision allowances, hearing aid maximums, chiropractic per-visit limits, etc.) are set in the current PCLCD MOU, not in the SPD, and the MOU is the authoritative source for what each benefit actually pays out today. If you want the current numbers, go to the MOU §III Welfare Section, or call the Plan office. Anything you read in a blog post (including this one) is a snapshot that will go stale the next time the parties update the schedules.

Reality check: the Plan office decides, not you and not an app

This is the part to internalize before you read any further. The hour count on your end is an estimate. The eligibility determination is made by the ILWU-PMA Welfare Plan Trustees based on the covered employment record they have on file (SPD §2.1, §2.2). PGP credit, disability credit, leave credit: all of it is computed by the Plan, not by you.

If your hours look close to a threshold, the move isn't to argue with the Plan office. The move is to make sure your record at the Plan office matches what you actually worked. Variances usually come from missing PGP credit, missing disability certification, or a registration / port assignment that doesn't reflect where you've been dispatched.

If you're in dispute, there's a formal review procedure laid out in SPD §8. Denial letters have to explain the reason, cite the Plan provisions, and tell you how to request a review. Use it.

How DockBook helps

The Welfare sheet inside DockBook (Pro) shows your pace toward the Annual Review and the Mid-year Review for your Assigned Port. It tracks the 800 / 400 / 400 ladder for a Major Port and the 480 / 240 / 240 ladder for a Minor Port, by Payroll Year and by half-year bucket, so you see where you actually stand instead of guessing in June.

The point isn't to replace the Plan office. They make the call, end of story. The point is that you don't get to July 1 surprised. If you're 60 hours short of the back-half test in May, that's a number you can do something about while there's still work on the board. If you find out you were short after the review period has already closed, there's nothing to do about that window.

A short checklist

1. Know your port class. Major or Minor changes every threshold.
2. Know your Payroll Year. Track hours against it, not the calendar year.
3. Track the two paths. Full year (800 / 480) and last-half alternative (400 / 240) for the Annual Review. First-half (400 / 240) for the Mid-year Review.
4. Count PGP and certified disability hours toward the threshold. They count under §2.3 and §2.4.
5. Check your record at the Plan office before assuming you're short.

Caveats

This is a plain-English explainer based on the ILWU-PMA Welfare Plan SPD. The SPD is authoritative for structure, eligibility rules, claims procedures, and definitions. Current dollar amounts for what the Plan pays out come from the PCLCD 2022-2028 MOU §III, not from the SPD or from any blog post. Authority order for any PMA question is MOU > PCLCD > PCCCD > SPDs.

The Trustees and the Plan office make the final eligibility determination, not DockBook and not me. If something here is out of date or wrong, email me and I'll fix it.

Coverage isn't a perk. It's a number. Know the number.