Former senator and now president of the National Trade Union Congress of the Philippines, Ernesto Herrera, and Labor and Employment Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz will be in Bacolod City on Aug. 24 and 25 for the joint national convention of the National Congress of Unions in the Sugar Industry of the Philippines and its partners.

Hernane Braza, NCUSIP-Negros secretary general, yesterday said, they will lobby for the strengthening of the trade union rights, collective bargaining agreement, and the prevention of child labor in the province.

Braza said they also have to pass resolutions to address the problem of contractualization that this has become a regular practice of many employers.

400 call center
scholarships open

Technical Education Skills Development Authority of Negros Occidental is offering 400 slots in the Training for Work Scholarship Program for aspiring call center agents through the Star of Asia Human Resource Training and Development Inc.

Lorena Yunque, TESDA provincial director, said yesterday that the Call Center of the Philippines and the National ICT Confederation of the Philippines, through the Bacolod-Negros Occidental Federation for Information and Communication Technology, provided the scholarships for Negros Occidental.

The free training aims to strengthen the proficiency of Negrenses to adapt and cater to the manpower needs of business process outsourcing companies in Negros.

SM expansion ongoing

The ongoing expansion of SM City Bacolod at the north side of the mall complex is progressing with phase one of the building plans dedicated to the construction of a bigger SM Department Store that will open in the first half of 2013, a press release from the mall said.

The development is part of the P1.4 billion investment project that will also see the completion of the rest of the annex building in 2014, the press release said.

The new department store will occupy a three-story building and will cover an area of approximately 27,000 square meters, which is part of the 102,043-sq. meter ground floor area allocated for the whole expansion project.