Tolerates work coming to a dead stop (10)
I believe the answer is:
standstill
'a dead stop' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'tolerates work coming to' is the wordplay.
'tolerates' becomes 'stands' ('stand' can be a synonym of 'tolerate').
'work' becomes 'till' (to till is to work the land).
'coming to' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'stands'+'till'='STANDSTILL'
(Other definitions for standstill that I've seen before include "negation of motion" , "Perhaps jam" , "arrest" , "lack of movement" , "complete halt" .)