A federal judge’s ruling late Friday has given public sector unions a major victory—and offered a firm rebuke to President Donald Trump’s anti-worker agenda—by declaring unconstitutional administration rules that sought to make it easier to fire government employees and undermine their right to bargain collectively.

Deciding on a challenge first brought by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), and later joined by other unions, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said that Trump’s orders “exceeded his authority” and violated the workers First Amendment rights.

“President Trump’s illegal action was a direct assault on the legal rights and protections that Congress specifically guaranteed to the public-sector employees across this country who keep our federal government running every single day,” declared J. David Cox Sr., AFGE’s national president, in the wake of the ruling.