The trouble-shooting columnists getting grief from State workers (5,5)
I believe the answer is:
agony aunts
'workers' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are plural nouns.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'the trouble-shooting columnists getting grief from state' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is located in the answer.
'from' could be 'o' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'o' is found in the answer.
'state' could be 'ny' (short for New York) and 'ny' is located in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for agony aunts that I've seen before include "people who have problems to deal with?" , "Write to these for advice" , "Advice columnists" , "Advisers" , "Columnists advising" .)