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Business English vocabulary · Working Life

Down tools

Meaning in business english, with examples

phraseAdvanced term

In business english, down tools means: To stop working, especially as part of collective industrial action.

In Turkish: iş bırakmak

How it is used

An informal British expression often used about industrial action. Tools can be figurative; the workers do not need to use physical hand tools.

Example sentences

  1. Workers threatened to down tools if the promised meeting about unpaid wages did not take place.

    The threatened action is stopping work rather than merely refusing overtime.

  2. The team did not down tools immediately; representatives first asked management for an explanation.

    The sentence distinguishes discussion from a subsequent possible stoppage.

Common collocations

  • threaten to down tools
  • decide to down tools
  • overtimeTime worked beyond your normal working hours, or the extra money paid for that time.
  • workplace cultureThe shared values, habits, and behavior that shape how people work, communicate, and treat each other in an organization.

More terms: Working Life

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