U.S. District Judge Richard Leon this week refused to allow federal workers to resist Trump administration orders to report to duty unpaid during the partial government shutdown. The order, delivered from the bench, was a setback for hundreds of thousands of workers who are required, or being told, to report to work with no compensation.

Leon on Friday issued a six-page written ruling in which he expressed empathy for the plight of federal employees as the shutdown, now the longest in the nation’s modern history, drags on. Leon’s ruling came in consolidated cases that involve labor unions and individual federal employees who allege their forced work for no pay violates federal law.