Union man buys the empty room (4,7)
I believe the answer is:
shop steward
'union man' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both people as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'buys the empty room' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is found in the answer.
'empty' could be 'o' and 'o' is located in the answer.
'room' could be 'ward' (I've seen this before) and 'ward' is found in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for shop steward that I've seen before include "Workplace representative of unionised employees" , "Unionist" , "Union official" , "One who's organizing hands" , "Workers' representative" .)