A group of workers who claimed they suffered health problems as a result of being exposed to debris from ground zero during its removal and transfer to a landfill on Staten Island stand to receive $27.5 million in a settlement announced on Friday.

The workers are a subgroup of the more than 10,000 plaintiffs who must decide whether to accept a far larger settlement with the city and its contractors over respiratory illnesses and injuries that they say they sustained because the defendants failed to ensure the safety of the workers after the Sept. 11 attack.

Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of United States District Court in Manhattan, who is overseeing the mass litigation, said in an order issued Friday that the plaintiffs affected by the latest settlement could claim money from it only if they opted into the larger settlement with the city.

That settlement, up to $712.5 million, requires the approval of 95 percent of the plaintiffs by Monday to be valid.