Wiktionary
n. (shop steward English)
Wikipedia
Shop stewards are representatives of labour unions, unlike other union representatives shop stewards are working on the factory level, connecting workers with union officials at state- or national levels.
The role of shop stewards may vary from being a mere represantative of a larger national union towards independent structures with the power of collective bargaining on the workplace.
Both in Germany and Britain shop stewards where crucial in antiwar protests during World War I, in Germany a network of shop stewards called Revolutionary Stewards took an important role in the revolutionary events of November 9 in Berlin.
Usage examples of "shop stewards".
For the past year or so they have been doing their utmost both to oust the Communists from key positions in the Unions and to get a firmer control over the shop stewards.
There was also opposition from the workers themselves, their natural suspicion and antagonism towards the new union shop stewards, all of them Buffaloes, all of them appointed and not elected.
Oh, that was the headman from one of the villages and two of his pals, sort of shop stewards.
Some of the shop stewards in our missile-production factory are red-hot Party men who go to Moscow for their holidays.
She did know it, and later on she would test the idea, but for now the white-collar guys on the top floor - the ones with all the good views - had once again wrested control away from the day-laborers and shop stewards who ran the machinery.