COLUMBUS, Ohio - As many as 3,800 boisterous public workers from across the state descended on the Ohio Statehouse on Thursday, rocking the normally sleepy Capitol to protest a far-reaching bill that would restrict collective bargaining rights.

The union workers filled the Statehouse's atrium, rotunda areas and adjacent stairwells as they listened to testimony on Senate Bill 5 being piped in over speakers from a heavily guarded second-floor hearing room. A smaller group of tea party activists were also in the crowd to support the bill.

Security was stepped up in and around the Statehouse where the public is normally allowed to move about freely. Highway Patrol troopers blocked access to hallways leading to the Senate room and turned people away as they stepped off elevators. Columbus police cruisers, typically absent at the Statehouse, lined each side of the Capitol, occasionally circling the building.

Not since 1997 when the Republican-controlled Senate removed a provision requiring that prevailing wage be paid on school building construction contracts has there been this heavy a union-backed protest inside the Statehouse while lawmakers are in session.

During that protest, union contractors jammed the Ohio Senate chamber and rotunda and caused so much commotion that a frustrated then-Senate President Richard Finan shattered his gavel trying to restore order.

But that was not the case on Thursday. While the protesters, many from the Ohio AFL-CIO and various police and fire and teachers unions across the state, were loud, the demonstrations were peaceful.

The highway patrol estimated the crowd at 1,800 on the low end. The Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board put the crowd total at 3,800, explaining that nearly 1,000 were in the atrium alone.

The protest was similar to what has exploded in Wisconsin this week. On Thursday, for the third day in a row, tens of thousands of state and local union workers protested against a similar proposal from that state's governor, Scott Walker.

Unions across the country are fighting a public relations battle not only with state governments, but with a portion of the public that has grown increasingly weary of paying for generous government pension and health benefits they can't get themselves in the private sector.

President Barack Obama's campaign group Organizing For America is supporting Wisconsin union workers and is now gearing up to help workers in Ohio and Indiana, whose legislature is considering a bill to limit collective bargaining by teachers, according to the Democratic National Committee.

At stake here is Ohio's nearly 30-year-old collective bargaining law that hasn't been changed since its inception. It gives organized state and local workers the right to collectively bargain for their working conditions and allows police and fire officials a right to seek binding arbitration.

But under the direction of Republican Gov. John Kasich, the GOP-controlled legislature is ready to rewrite the law and ban collective bargaining for all state employees and sharply curtail binding arbitration rules for local governments.

Republicans on Thursday stressed that they weren't trying to harm the workers but save Ohio cities from potentially going bankrupt as they try to keep up with the rising cost of salaries and benefits gained by municipal workers through binding arbitration.

"My concern is controlling the blossoming salaries and budgets for local governments and the state," said state Sen. Kevin Bacon, a Columbus Republican who chairs the Senate Insurance, Commerce and Labor committee, where the bill is being heard.

"They are locked in situations that are really hard to reverse under these rules," Bacon said. "So it's not about trying to go after labor. It is trying to create flexibility, which they won't like."

Union groups, however, vehemently disagree, charging that Kasich, who has said public workers who strike should be fired, and Republican lawmakers are attacking working families.

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Sean Grayson, general counsel for the AFSCME Ohio Council 8, told the committee that there is nothing in the collective bargaining law that forced government leaders to settle on the very contract agreements they now complain about.

"There is nothing that compels a public employer to cave in because of an existing part of the collective bargaining law," Grayson said. "Neither party has to propose anything. Neither party has to concede anything. Neither party has to agree to anything."

Some proponents who testified on Thursday asked the senators to expand the collective bargaining ban to include local governments, too.

Ray Warrick, of Mason in Southwest Ohio, a tea party member, told Republicans controlling the committee that people like him voted them into office, and now the lawmakers owe it those voters to pass this bill.

"You will not see us or hear us every day," Warrick said, "but I think you know there are thousands of ordinary citizens across this state that are counting on you."

Opponents say they are willing to make some concessions but stripping their rights to bargain could lead to lower wages and benefits and hurt Ohio families.

Senate Republicans said they do not expect the bill, sponsored state Sen. Shannon Jones, a Republican from Springboro, to be voted out as it was introduced.

"My view is that everybody, Democrats and Republicans, need to understand that we can't remain with the status quo on this," said state Sen. Keith Faber, a Republican, the committee's vice chairman. "Simply saying kill the bill is not an option."

But that is exactly what some protesters want. Firefighters wore T-shirts that read "Kill the Bill,"and state workers wore bright red shirts that read "No on SB 5."

"What I'm seeing here today is that management is trying to be seen as the victim here, but they sit across the table and negotiated these deals just like us," said Lawrence McKissic, of Twinsburg, who was at the Statehouse on Thursday. McKissic is an IT specialist for the Bureau of Workers' Compensation in Garfield Heights.

"My concern as a state worker is that we would be unilaterally taken out of collective bargaining and it is being done without any word or input from the union or the employees," he said. "They're just trying slam this through this committee."

Bacon said he expects to have one or two more hearings next week and likely some amendments to the bill before it moves out of committee.