Holds working meeting with partners — they're past it (3-5)
I believe the answer is:
has-beens
'past it' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this defines the answer.
'holds working meeting with partners' is the wordplay.
'holds' becomes 'has' ('have' can be a synonym of 'hold').
'working meeting' becomes 'bee' (I've seen this before. I am not sure about the 'working' bit.).
'with' says to put letters next to each other.
'partners' becomes 'ns' (North and South are partners in the game bridge).
'has'+'bee'+'ns'='HAS-BEENS'
'they're' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for has-beens that I've seen before include "People not doing as well as they once did, like Banshees" , "People who used to be famous" , "People past their best, no longer in the news" , "People no longer important (colloq.)" , "People no longer of significance" .)