Lincoln mill sale to be finalized Wednesday

LINCOLN, Maine (NEWS CENTER) --

The sale of the Lincoln Paper mill to liquidation company Gordon Brothers will be final Wednesday morning. Meantime, in Lincoln most of the 170 workers have now been laid-off and are trying to figure out what's next.

Eastern Maine Development Corporation is one of the organizations trying to help the mill workers out. They are working to help them get retraining, unemployment benefits, schooling and ultimately new jobs.

According to Roger Zelkan, the president of the union representing Lincoln mill workers, many of them still do not know what they what path they want to take forward.

He along with other EMDC employees in Lincoln are reaching out to explain what those options are and that finding a new job may require traveling far or relocating.

"There is hope after the mill," said Zelkan. "You just need to pursue what you want to do. Talk to your counselors, come in and see me, I'm always here to help and hopefully we can get you going in the direction and right career path for what you want to do."

They say mill workers stopping in to see them right now have a lot of questions about what unemployment benefits they can get.

"Right now there's a lot of questions regarding unemployment," said Joyce Santerre, a career advisor at EMDC. "We refer them to the unemployment office and also the Maine job bank to get connected and use that on a regular basis."

There is also financial assistance on the way for workers at Expera's mill in Old Town which is shutting down this month.

Senators Angus King and Susan Collins announced today that federal Department of Labor funding will be made available to help retrain them.