Work involved in transporting paintings etc. in compartment (7)
I believe the answer is:
cartage
'work involved in transporting' is the definition.
'etc in compartment' is the wordplay.
'etc' becomes 'art' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'in' indicates putting letters inside.
'compartment' becomes 'cage'.
'art' put into 'cage' is 'CARTAGE'.
'paintings' is the link.
This may not be correct. It may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for cartage that I've seen is " Cost of moving".)