The Legislature’s Joint Committee on Employment Relations approved unionized state employees’ contracts for the 2001-’03 budget cycle, ending what had become a personal three-month struggle by many Wisconsin workers to gather support in the Capitol for their cause.

Assembly Majority Leader and Committee co-chair Rep. John Gard, R-Peshtigo, was one of the main opponents of the contract, letting the decision to ratify the labor agreements fester until the committee rejected the contracts in February, voting along party lines at the request of a lawsuit filed by the Wisconsin Federation of Teachers.

Gard and other committee members said that offering the state employees a raise would add to the ever-deepening $3.2 billion budget deficit.

In the months since the committee’s rejection of the contracts, employees have kept a modest vigil in the rotunda of the Capitol building, keeping a count of how many days their contracts have been “held hostage.”

The committee asked the Department of Employment Relations to resubmit the contracts for the Monday vote, which approved in a seven-to-one vote the identical agreements it previously rejected.

Rep. Steve Foti, R-Oconomowoc, was the dissenting voter in the committee’s decision.

“With the state of the current budget situation being what it is, he didn’t think this was the most beneficial thing that could be done for the state,” said Foti spokeswoman Michelle Arbiture.

Steve Baas, spokesman for Gard, said the delaying of the contracts allowed committee members to rest assured future negotiations would reform health care in a way that is beneficial to the state and more in line with the insurance situation those working in the commercial sector have available to them.

Baas said the committee accomplished a number of things Monday. While they approved the union employees’ 2001-’03 contracts, they also approved health-care reforms for the non-union employees’ 2003-’05 contracts, which committee members expect will be used as a starting point for 2003-’05 union negotiations.

“For years now we’ve been trying to make changes, and until today we’ve been unsuccessful,” Baas said. “The days of free health care for state employees are over.”

Aaron Nuutinen, spokesman for committee member Rep. Jim Kreuser, D-Kenosha, said the state employees were not bound to accept any offer made by the Department of Employment Relations in any future negotiations and that the committee Republicans achieved nothing by stalling.

“They delayed 19 contracts for 15,000 employees for an extensive amount of time and ended up approving the same contracts,” Nuutinen said.

The contracts are expected to see a vote before the entire Legislature May 6, and employee unions are optimistic about the outcome.

Gov. Jim Doyle had said he would order the Department of Employment Relations to resubmit the contracts if he felt the legislative atmosphere would be favorable. State-employee unions had worked feverishly through grassroots efforts to gather the necessary support from lawmakers and put pressure on the committee.

The Wisconsin Federation of Teachers, one of the unions embattled over the contracts, announced Monday that the committee’s passage of their contracts was a relief and pleasantly coincided with their celebration of National Public Service Recognition Week.

“It’s time to turn the page and close this chapter, to begin good-faith negotiations for 2003-’05 with an expectation that recent events represent little more than an aberration, to turn our energies to the current daunting deficit, and perhaps more importantly, to engage our leaders and all Wisconsinites in a serious dialogue concerning the future of our great state,” said Wisconsin Federation of Teachers president Bob Beglinger in a release Monday.