tööliste

Tööliste is the genitive plural form of tööline, the Estonian word for a worker or employee. It literally means “of the workers” and is used to express a relationship, possession, or association involving workers, for example in phrases such as tööliste õigused (the workers’ rights) or tööliste liikumine (the workers’ movement).

Grammatically, tööliste marks the genitive plural of tööline. It is used after prepositions or in constructions that require the genitive case, and it appears in both formal and historical texts to refer to the collective group of workers. The form is common in phrases describing attributes, ownership, or activities connected to workers.

In usage and historical context, tööliste is frequently encountered in discussions of labor history, social movements, and politics in Estonia. It denotes the working class as a social group and appears in academic writings, journalism, and political discourse when addressing workers’ rights, labor organizations, and collective action. In modern Estonian, the term is standard for referring to multiple workers in a possessive or descriptive sense, rather than as a simple nominative subject.