Since you are out of work because of no fault of your own, ask them if you can collect unemployment from them since they are stopping you from working? Really, there is no way they can tell you not to work if they have basically caused your unemployment. Now if you were working for one company and you were working for a competitor in the same field i can see a problem.
This is CABL.com posting #240573. Tiny Link: cabl.co/mbaKn