Greve de zelo (zeal strike?)

cog on 2005-06-23T10:39:48

Since it seems that many cultures don't have this concept, I'll explain it briefly (In a separate journal entry rather than in a comment because I think it's relevant).

Imagine a university...

The students performing a "greve" (strike) would mean the university wouldn't have any...

The students performing a "greve de zelo" would mean every single student would show up.

Does such a "greve" cause disruption? Is it intended to?

Yes, it does.

Let me demonstrate:

Back where I studied...

17,000 students...

Most of those students stayed in bed...

If all of them showed up one day, it would demonstrate that the facilities were inedequate to accomodate them all...

Another example:

Police force! (and this is the case at hand)

In their case, a "greve de zelo" would result in a huge amount of parking tickets, for instance...

See the point now? :-)

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grève du zèle

echo on 2005-06-23T14:09:44

In France, grève du zèle is popular with air traffic controllers, who normally do not comply to the full extent of regulations -- doing so would require a significant decrease in traffic.

Re:grève du zèle

cog on 2005-06-23T14:49:18

They've done something in Portuguese airports a while ago too, checking through every tenth passenger's bags, just as the book says they should :-)

Flights were getting *huge* delays.

work to rule

jmm on 2005-06-23T17:05:01

The common mechanism used in Canada is "work to rule", where every rule is taken to the limit in the favour of the employee and to the detriment of the employer. So, they stop work at closing time to the second regardless of whether some job is almost complete, take every minute allowed for lunch and breaks, and job specific actions, e.g. teachers stop running extra-curricular clubs or doing any paperwork other than marking and grading.