I don’t know if you often find yourself in Clapham nowadays, but next time you do, hop on a bus and ask the gentleman sitting beside you if he would be so good as to tell you what he understands by the expression, “dock work”.

“Dock work” in fact can be performed only by registered dock workers, and loosely it can be described as work upon cargo performed at a place to which the relevant scheme applies, being work of a type ordinarily performed by dock workers. If the work does not come within the description of dock work as interpreted by the Courts, then it can be performed by you, or me, or the gentleman sitting next to you.

If running true to form, and after the usual interval necessarily entailed in his satisfying himself that he understood the question (“When you say ‘dock work’, do you mean ‘dock work’?”) your neighbour would probably say something like this:

“Well, it’s what those people in the docks do who load and unload ships — stevedores are they called?”.

This, perhaps more elegantly expressed, is, I think, what the phrase would connote to most of us, but how wrong we would be; and, on being informed of our mistake, the majority of us would probably say how absurd it all was — “dock work” jolly well ought to be what they believe it to be in Clapham.

To see how this strange state of affairs came about, it is necessary to look briefly at what has been variously described as “a maze of referential statutory provisions” and “a veritable jungle of statutory provisions”, and other legislation.

The Dock Labour Scheme at present in force has its near roots in the Emergency Powers Legislation of the 1939-45 world war. In fact, efforts to regularise the employment structure of the industry were first made on a local basis as long ago as 1912, but my starting point can be the Essential Work (Dock Labour) Order 1941.

Under that Order the Minister of Labour and National Service was empowered to approve a dock labour scheme for any port, and there was issued with that Order a Model Dock Labour Scheme. In preparing a scheme for a particular port, a local definition was to be drawn up of the “port” and the definition of “port transport work” (which is synonymous with “dock work” under the current legislation) was obtained by cross-reference to the port registration scheme approved by the Minister under the Dock Labour (Compulsory Registration) Order 1940. All clear so far? Good.

The introduction of such schemes was directed to objects similar to those now enshrined in the current legislation, namely “to ensure greater regularity of employment for dock workers and to secure that an adequate number of dock workers is available for the efficient performance of dock work”.