Bill Townsend, a 66-year-old manager from Portsmouth, N.H., said a rally in his home city shows that not everyone agrees with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s effort to strip collective bargaining rights from most public workers.

“I feel the Wisconsin governor is totally wrong,” said Townsend. “If we eliminate collective bargaining, we eliminate the major reason for unions to exist.”

Thirty-nine-year-old Hampton, N.H., firefighter Walt Madore said he came because he fears the attacks on unions will spread.

“If it happens in one place, it won’t be long before legislators in other places will get the same idea,” he said.

Organizers estimated several hundred people attended the rally sponsored by Seacoast for Change.

At a rally at the Vermont Statehouse in Montpelier, organizers had to shovel 7 inches of snow from the steps before the event.

About 200 people turned out dressed as if they were going ice fishing or to a late-season Packers football game.

The crowd, including many Wisconsin transplants, chanted, carried signs, sang Woody Guthrie tunes and heard speeches decrying Walker’s attempt to reduce the bargaining powers of his state’s public employees’ unions.

The gathering, convened by local members of MoveOn.org., had encouraged participants to wear white and cardinal red, the colors of the University of Wisconsin, and many did. Some of the posters included drawings of Bucky Badger.

“We Support the Wisconsin Delegates,” read one poster, a reference to the Democratic state senators of Wisconsin who are camping out in Illinois to deprive Walker of the quorum he needs for a vote on the union legislation.

“Stop the Attack on Wisconsin Families!” read another poster.

“This is not about balancing the budget; it is about disenfranchising working people,” said Lisa Jablow, a teacher at Johnson State College, who was wearing a cheesehead.

Labor groups also planned a rally at the Maine Statehouse on Saturday. The Bangor Daily News reported that tea party activists planned to hold an event in support of Walker.

In his weekly radio address, Maine Gov. Paul LePage said it’s “gotten ugly” in Wisconsin.

LePage said union rallies are planned in Augusta this week to protest retirement proposals in his budget.

But he said pension checks won’t go down a penny next year under his budget, despite critics’ claims that he is decimating the retirement benefits of current retired state employees.