However, as this grievance is resolved, talks have opened on a new issue.
The lieu day dispute goes back 25 years. The courts recently found against Rio Tinto-owned New Zealand Aluminium Smelters that workers on 12-hour shifts should have had their lieu days for public holidays assessed as 12-hour days, not eight-hour days as was paid at the time.
"Other anomalies'' also needed to be addressed, according to E tu Southland union organiser Trevor Hobbs.
When contacted about the "anomalies'', he said staff working under three "versions'' of the collective agreement, and also those staff working days, received 11 statutory days a year, but "version four'' staff only got a lieu day when working a statutory day.
He had raised the issue with management, and planned to pursue it further.
Mr Hobbs had initiated the original lieu case on behalf of 64 union members, and said the final settlement of "upwards of $20 million'' of leave and pay arrears would go to about 450 current and former smelter employees.
"Payouts will be governed by the same methodology used to calculate entitlements for the 64 litigants, subject to company consultation and feedback,'' Mr Hobbs said.
The arrears applied to all current staff, employed before April 1, 2004, who worked those shifts within the last 25 years.
He said many former workers would also be paid. New Zealand Aluminium Smelters has set a cut-off date for former employees of January 1, 2010.
He said hundreds of workers would reap the rewards of the union action and urged all Tiwai's more than 600 staff to join. The consultation period closes on Friday.
