Thanks, Sens. Snowe and Collins.

Thanks for the vote on the bankruptcy bill last week.

But that was last week. This week, we’re closing two facilities in Maine and plan to reduce our work force, affecting about 300 or so people. Employees can transfer to other locations. Or not.

That’s the message from credit card giant MBNA, which announced Tuesday that it would be closing its call center in Rockland and its training center in Camden-Northport by the end of April.

MBNA won a major victory last week when the Senate approved legislation that will make it more difficult for people to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection. Thanks to the changes, more people left busted by unexpected illness, divorce or job loss will still remain firmly in the grasp of a usurious credit industry.

Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins supported the new bankruptcy rules, which is good news for credit card companies. This is how a credit card company says thank you?

The changes likely have been in the works for some time and the company is offering 26-week severance packages to employees who lose their jobs, but MBNA’s timing stinks.

In the second quarter of last year alone, MBNA’s profits rose 21 percent and the company added 2.5 million new customers, according to the News-Journal in Delaware. For the last 15 years, the company has managed to increase profits, on average, 20 percent a year. CEO Bruce Hammonds told the paper he expects profits to increase only 10 percent this year.

We’re sure MBNA will squeeze by somehow. Just like the workers who will lose their jobs – and won’t have bankruptcy to fall back on as a last resort – or the ones forced to move.