Last year, Starbucks workers in Buffalo voted to unionize, and the Starbucks on Buffalo’s Elmwood Avenue became the chain’s first unionized location in the US. Since then, more Starbucks workers have joined unions, and the company has freaked out, closing locations and illegally firing workers. Yesterday, as PBS reports, a National Labor Relations Board judge ruled that Starbucks had violated labor laws by firing pro-union workers in Kansas and Missouri; the company will have to offer to reinstate the workers and pay them back for any lost wages. Meanwhile, back at that Elmwood Avenue Starbucks in Buffalo, the great leftist musician Billy Bragg joined striking workers in a demonstration.

Billy Bragg, an avowed socialist with a long history of supporting workers’ rights, came to Buffalo yesterday on a day off from tour. Buffalo’s WIVB covered the protest outside Starbucks, as Bragg led a “Solidarity Forever” singalong and offered encouragement to the striking workers: “If you mix empathy with activism, you get solidarity, and that’s what they’re really afraid of.” Watch the news report below.