work to rule

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A job action in which employees do no more than the minimum required by the rules of a workplace in order to cause a slowdown.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• verb idiomatic To work slowly by strictly following all work rules, usually in a work-to-rule job action, as part of unionized labor protest.
• noun Job action consisting of working to rule.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a job action in which workers cause a slowdown by doing only the minimum amount required by the rules of the workplace