More than $3m in redundancy payments is being awarded to former Silver Fern Farms staff.

Local meat workers have been fighting for more than a year with Silver Fern Farms over the payments.

Initially the company refused to make more than 100 workers redundant, despite having no work for them.

That was when their usual lamb processing season was cut.

Since then the workers have been represented by a national union, which took their case to the Employment Relations Authority and won.

Silver Fern Farms chose to pay redundancy packages, rather than appeal the authority's decision.

It's not known exactly how much money the company has agreed to pay.