U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins announced late Tuesday afternoon that seven wood-product workers, recently laid off in Bethel, would receive federal help.

The U.S. Department of Labor had granted Trade Adjustment Assistance to the displaced workers of the former Eldred Wheeler Co., an antique furniture replication manufacturing plant in West Bethel village.

The Trade Adjustment Assistance certification is to provide support “to these hard-working, skilled workers, so they might return to the work force,” the release stated.

“These workers lost their jobs through no fault of their own, and we are hopeful that they will benefit from this assistance,” Collins and Snowe said in a joint statement.

The Trade Adjustment Assistance program provides aide to workers who lose their jobs because of foreign competition.

Marlene Gile, an employment consultant with Western Maine Community Action at the Rumford Career Center, said Wednesday afternoon that letters had been sent to the workers, notifying them to be present at a TAA meeting at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 7, at the center.

Five of the employees were laid off on Sept. 10 by the plant’s parent company of Hingham, Mass.; the other two, who are managers, were let go last month following the plant’s closure.

Gile said it had been in operation for about two-and-a-half years. Residences of the displaced workers, she said, include Bethel, Bryant Pond, Rumford and Berlin, N.H.

One of them, Kathy Hebert, 47, of East Bethel, had previously gone through the TAA program after being laid off in January 2002 from the former Gilbert Wood Products plant in Locke Mills, Gile said.

The program, Gile said, enabled Hebert to attend the former Mid-State College in Lewiston, where she learned office and production managerial skills that landed her a job in October 2003 at the Eldred.

Trade Adjustment Assistance benefits to workers who are newly unemployed include training, education, job search and relocation allowances, and re-employment services, including counseling, interview training, and resume assistance, Gile said.

Health care tax credits and unemployment benefits extensions are also established for a company that has received TAA certifications.

That certification, she said, entitles the workers to enter the job search mode or go to school or seek short-term training while getting another 26 weeks of unemployment pay.

“They’ll get 80 percent of whatever they were making at Eldred,” Gile said.

If, after the first 26 weeks, the affected employees are still in training or have just completed training, they’ll get another 26 weeks of unemployment pay.

“They can get up to two years of unemployment now if they’re in training, but most people don’t go long-term. It’s quite a benefit,” Gile said.