The fellow facing destiny as a lowly worker (5)
I believe the answer is:
helot
'a lowly worker' is the definition.
(slave in ancient Sparta)
'the fellow facing destiny' is the wordplay.
'the fellow' becomes 'he' (pronoun for a man).
'facing' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'destiny' becomes 'lot' (I've seen this before).
'he'+'lot'='HELOT'
'as' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for helot that I've seen before include "Hotel (anag) - serf" , "Serf of ancient Sparta" , "He's bound to land" , "downtrodden?" , "Spartan slave" .)