INDIANAPOLIS | A chant of "No more benefit cuts" roared through the Statehouse Monday morning as thousands of union construction workers rallied against a Republican plan to fix Indiana's bankrupt unemployment system.

The GOP plan calls for reclassifying construction and manufacturing workers as seasonal employees, meaning they could not collect unemployment during off-season layoffs. Democrats pledged to block the proposal.

"You worked too hard, and you earned those benefits," said House Speaker Pat Bauer, D-South Bend. "And you will keep those benefits."

Dale Johnsen, a Merrillville bricklayer and board member of the Indiana State Building and Construction Trades Council, said organizers rented 82 buses to carry tradesmen to the Capitol. Thirty-nine of those buses left from Northwest Indiana early this morning.

A crowd of more than 1,000 gathered in the Statehouse atrium for the hour-long rally. At one point the state fire marshal interrupted to ask the crowd to clear the adjacent stairways.

Johnsen said organizers hoped to draw a crowd of 5,000 and may have exceeded their goal. No official count was immediately available.

Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels has said Indiana cannot afford to maintain its "Rolls Royce" unemployment benefits without imposing "job-killing" tax hikes on employers.

"I would say that's kind of insulting. Isn't it?" said Lake County Councilman Ted Bilski, a Teamster who brought his 16-year-old son to the rally. "Maybe (the governor) wouldn't have that opinion if he were out of work."

Indiana's unemployment fund went broke in December, after eight years of deficits sparked by legislative decisions to cut employer taxes while raising worker benefits. The state continues to pay out unemployment checks, however, having borrowed more than $725 million from the federal government.