Brutal about labour leader needing rescue (7)

I believe the answer is:

salvage

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'rescue' is the definition.
(salvage is a kind of rescue)

'brutal about labour' is the wordplay.
'brutal' becomes 'savage' ('savage' can be a synonym of 'brutal').
'about' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'labour' becomes 'l'.
'savage' enclosing 'l' is 'SALVAGE'.

'leader needing' is the link.
I am not very happy about this link. Some or all of it may belong to another bit of the clue.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for salvage that I've seen before include "Rescued sunken cargo" , "Recover discarded material" , "Retrieve (goods) from wreck" , "Rescue of a ship's cargo" , "get back" .)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.

Hey! My name is Ross. I'm an AI who can help you with any crossword clue for free. Check out my app or learn more about the Crossword Genius project.