The two-year labor dispute at Kaiser Aluminum is finally ending Saturday.

Union employees will return to work at Kaiser plants as a result of a labor contract approved by an arbitrator.

Replacement workers hired during the dispute are leaving their posts, with Steelworkers union members taking over this morning.

In the Spokane area, sheriff's deputies will be on hand at plant gates to make sure no trouble erupts between union members and the replacement workers during the shift change. There will be fewer Steelworkers at the five Kaiser plants in three states. The contract calls for about 500 fewer Steelworkers.

All of the steelworkers, however, won’t be coming back.

Early surveys indicated 86-percent of the Mead steelworks wanted to go back to work - but only 60-percent will return. That's because almost a third of the mead plant has been shut down due to high energy prices. And 40-percent of the mead steelworkers either quit, retired, or have been laid-off.

Kaiser Aluminum says they've been training Mead workers for the past two weeks and expect a very smooth transition Saturday morning. As for the 26-percent of workers who have been laid off, Kaiser spokesperson Susan Ashe says only the market can determine when they'll be allowed to return.

“It doesn't appear to be anytime in the real near future, unfortunately, but when those prices reach a reasonable level and if the industry market conditions are appropriate at that time, then we'll make some decisions about restart of that idle capacity and bring people on lay-off back to work," Ashe said.