Staging their stunt of the week, Florida public-employee unions called on members Thursday to withdraw funds from five banks in protest of labor-reform legislation.

The unions, representing some 20,000 workers, targeted Bank of America, PNC Bank, Regions Bank, SunTrust and Wachovia, whose executives sit on the Florida Chamber of Commerce board of directors. The Chamber is among the leading business groups lobbying to end payroll withholding of union dues by government agencies.

The South Florida Water Management District uses a loophole in state law to avoid requiring lobbyists to register and disclose who hired them, which officials they seek to influence and how much they are being paid.

None of the states five water management districts requires special-interest lobbyists to register before they contact board members and staff about big money contracts, environmental permits or other important matters involving public policy.

Gov. Rick Scott spent the first anniversary of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster eating seafood and walking along Floridas sugar sand Panhandle beaches in a marketing effort to get visitors back to the region that lost more than $1 billion in tourism business alone following the disaster.

But as Scott strolled and dined Wednesday, challenges facing the region remain, as individuals and businesses battle over claims many of which remain unpaid for lost income, and local governments and the state play a chess game of sorts to recoup millions lost in local taxes.

Marking the one-year anniversary of the Gulf oil spill on Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio called for the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship to meet in Pensacola to focus on the regions recovery.