Demonstrators slam Scott as part of union-led protests tied to MLK assassination anniversary

WEST PALM BEACH — As of noon, about 80 demonstrators had gathered outside the Palm Beach County Convention Center to protest Gov. Rick Scott’s budget-cutting proposals as part of a national day of union-organized rallies tied to the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.

Scott is scheduled to speak to an economic conference at the convention center sometime after 1 p.m.

Unions and other groups organized “We Are One” rallies around the U.S. today, primarily in reaction to measures to limit or end collective bargaining rights for public employees in Wisconsin and Ohio. They selected the anniversary of King’s 1968 assassination because the civil rights leader was in Memphis to support striking sanitation workers at the time he was killed.

“If Dr. King were with us today, he would undoubtedly be marching against injustice in Madison, Wisconsin, and Columbus, Ohio, and on Capitol Hill, just as he marched against injustice in Memphis in 1968,” said Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights President Wade Henderson in a conference call with reporters this morning.

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