Rank And File Meaning

(idiomatic) Those lacking any particular title or status; those having no station.

Example: Common soldiers, as would be arrayed in a grid pattern with ranks and files.
  The executives attend meetings in exotic locations while the rank and file stays at headquarters doing the bulk of the work.
2013 May 23, Sarah Lyall, "British Leader’s Liberal Turn Sets Off a Rebellion in His Party," New York Times (retrieved 29 May 2013):
  First, a prominent Tory called the party’s rank and file “swivel-eyed loons.” Then the populist politician Nigel Farage called Prime Minister David Cameron and his Tory-led government “a bunch of college kids.”