What does "work-to-rule" mean?

A labor protest in which employees do only the minimum work required by the rules of a workplace, following safety or other regulations to the letter in order to cause a slowdown.

Work-to-rule

adj, noun

adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
A labor protest in which employees do only the minimum work required by the rules of a workplace, following safety or other regulations to the letter in order to cause a slowdown.

Adjective

1
Of or pertaining to such a protest. not-comparable
"Disgruntled by chronic staff shortages, doctors threatened a “work-to-rule” action at the East London Hospital Complex by the end of this week."

Antonyms

All antonyms

speedup stretch-out

Example

More examples

"During the union meeting, several members mentioned the possibility of organising a work-to-rule strike to draw attention to working conditions."

Etymology

Deverbal from work to rule.

More for "work-to-rule"

Synonyms Sentences Pronunciation Translate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonyms See usage examples Check pronunciation Browse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.