Work-to-rule
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The JC’s amateur guide to systems theory™
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Work-to-rule
wɜːk-tuː-ruː also: go-slow (n.)
To do no more than scrupulously follow formal working rules, policies and procedures exactly, as a form of industrial action, especially in industries where outright strikes are illegal. To work-to-rule is to refrain from exercising any judgment, effort, energy, time or discretion beyond those officially required.
“Designed or planned social order is necessarily schematic; it always ignores essential features of any real, functioning social order. This truth is best illustrated in a work-to-rule strike, which turns on the fact that any production process depends on a host of informal practices and improvisations that could never be codified. By merely following the rules meticulously, the workforce can virtually halt production.
Which, in our neo-Taylorist times, seems curious: it is to insist upon doing what operationalising middle managers ask us to do: surely one side of this argument is missing the point. As ever readers, the JC finds it to be the management layer.
There is an often-stated but still wildly optimistic idea that all policies are complied with. Not only are they not, but they are disregarded explicitly. All concerned understand that optimal — even basically acceptable performance requires turning a blind eye to the rules. There is no better example than the work-to-rule: a form of industrial action adopted by those who are, by regulation, not permitted to go out on strike. The work-to-rule involves, literally, insisting rigorously on complying with every aspect of every prescribed policy as a means of frustrating the commercial objectives of the organisation.
What does it mean? It means that if people don’t want to or cannot go on strike they say to one another: “let’s follow all the rules for a change!” Systems come to a grinding halt. Gridlock is the result. Follow the letter of the law, and the work will not get done. It is as good as, or better than, going on strike.
The vibe is: “Oh, I see, Mr. Employer, is that it? Are we being dicks about out employment relationship? Well, two can play at that game.”
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