[media-credit name=’Megan McCormick/The Badger Herald’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]

Amid protests in and around the Capitol Tuesday, hundreds of citizens testified their concerns with the budget repair bill to the state’s main financial committee, lasting the majority of the day and into the early hours of this morning.

Gov. Scott Walker introduced his budget repair bill last Friday to address the current year’s $137 million budget and received immediate criticism from laborers, educators, lawyers and medical professionals concerned the bill would effectively terminate union’s collective bargaining rights.

Walker said repealing some collective bargaining rights would allow the state to manage spending reductions.

“The state’s civil service system, among the strongest in the country, would remain in place,” Walker said in a statement. “State and local employees could continue to bargain for base pay; they would not be able to bargain over other compensation measures.”

The bill’s critics showed up in force to testify at the Joint Finance Committee public hearing, and not a single citizen voiced support for the bill after 1:15 p.m.The testimonies lasted more than 12 hours.

Christian Eichenlaub, an assistant public defender, said with no sarcasm that he is an “awesome” public worker, and the state of Wisconsin benefits from his service. Without bargaining authority, Wisconsin would lose public defenders, he said.

University Wisconsin Hospital nurse Angela Aldous told the committee she did not understand why her and her colleagues’ bargaining rights were being stripped away because UW Hospital is separate from the state budget. She said the only answer was Walker must not like unions.

Christopher Schultz, an IT worker and Madison Teachers Inc. member, said he would gladly pay more toward his pension and health care premium than lose the right to collectively bargain.

Through the testimony, citizens repeatedly asked the committee how repealing collective bargaining authority would grow the economy. Rep. Tamara Grigsby, D-Milwaukee, told the committee getting rid of collective bargaining does nothing for economic recovery.

In a memo Monday, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau listed nine items in Walker’s budget repair bill that would not have any economic effect, and modifications made to public employee collective bargaining were included.

Republican supporters of the bill said the government is not on a “witch hunt for union cards” and understood most state employees are hard-working and professional.

“I think most reasonable people also realize that there’s no way we can come to a solution without some shared sacrifice,” said Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, in a letter to workers. “More than one-third of the state budget is spent on state operations, and half of that is on salary and benefits for employees.”

Many of those testifying continued the hearing well into Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

About 400 people stood in a line that snaked up at least two flights of stairs and started chanting, “Let us speak.” They had been told the committee would not hear their testimony, said Kevin Denish, a spokesperson for Grigsby.

The chants could be heard in the committee room and only stopped after Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee, left the hearing to address the crowd. She stepped onto a chair and requested the group calm down and said some members of the committee brought up public safety issues.

At press time, the Joint Finance Committee had not voted on the bill but would likely vote in a session later in the day on Wednesday.