John McArthur refuses to work for nothing at LAMH Recyling, Motherwell, Scotland

AN electronics worker was ordered by a UK Government department to work for a company for six months without pay. He refused.

Man told to work for nothing

AN electronics worker was ordered by a UK Government department to work for a company for six months without pay.

John McArthur, 59, is refusing to work for nothing at LAMH Recycling in the town of Motherwell, in Scotland, after a directive from the UK Government’s Department of Work and Pensions.

McArthur, who has been protesting the decision by demonstrating outside the company for two hours a day for the past three months, has had his unemployment benefit stopped for refusing the 26-week community work placement (CWP).

He previously worked for the company, which has charitable status, and was paid on the minimum wage from 2010 to 2011.

“It was simply a case of: ‘Go here, work for nothing and if you don’t we’ll stop your subsistence level benefit,’” McArthur told The Guardian.

LAMH told The Guardian that it has 16 people working for six months without pay under the CWP and six had progressed into paid employment since the end of June.

McArthur disagrees.

“It’s essentially slave labour which bypasses the minimum wage regulations,” he told The Motherwell Times.

“My trade is electronics, but I’ve been applying for every kind of job. I make around 50 applications a week, but I refuse to work for nothing.”

He is living on a works pension and admits he is struggling to survive living on tins of spaghetti.

“Community Work Placements help long-term unemployed people to gain work experience which increases their confidence, helps them to gain vital skills and crucially, improves their chances of getting a job,” a DWP spokesperson said in a statement to The Independent.

“These placements do not replace existing roles.”

The DWP confirmed that charities the British Heart Foundation, Scope, Banardo’s, Sue Ryder and Marie Curie had withdrawn from the CWP scheme.

Originally published as John McArthur refuses to work for nothing at LAMH Recyling, Motherwell, Scotland