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It's a big week - and month - for public sector jobs.

The Assembly Government publishes its draft budget for the next three years on November 17th but either side of that there are critical meetings which will determine whether major changes to the way public servants work will be implemented relatively smoothly - note the 'relatively' in that line - or lead to widespread industrial strife.

The omens aren't good. First Neath Port Talbot, then more recently Rhondda Cynon Taf have been at the centre of bitter disputes about staff working conditions and possible redundancies. Unions have denounced the way RCT in particular have handled the process, accusing them of "holding a loaded pistol" to the heads of workers and threats of lock-outs.

Both councils counter this strongly. They say that projected budget shortfalls over the next few years leave them with no choice. They simply have to implement greater workforce flexibility. RCT, for example, foresee a £60m shortfall between income and expenditure over the coming three years - a gap that can't be bridged without major changes to staff working.

The management of RCT strongly dispute the "lock out" claims from the GMB. They say it was beholden on them to issue a statutory notice warning of possible changes to staff terms and conditions and possible redundancies given they're in the process of drawing up a budget for next year that inevitably has to include spending cuts - with all the obvious implications they bring with them.

Negotiation by threat and diktat say the unions.

These cases are being watched extremely closely. Some observers feel the councils may have jumped the gun just a bit and that's why this month is so important.

On Wednesday the HR heads of all 22 local authorities will get together with the aim of thrashing out a range of what's being called, somewhat euphemistically you might argue, "workforce flexibilities" in order to try and protect jobs and services. Remember those two tables? Yes, what they'll do is sit down at those tables, take stock of where individual councils are in terms of planning for the cuts and then set out a coherent set of proposals. A colleague - a Spice Girls fan at that - suggests "When 22 become 1" as a title for this entry. You'll be glad that I resisted but his (yes, his) suggestion is noted for a later date.

The next key date is around a fortnight later, on November 26th, when the Wales TUC will hold a special conference in Cardiff attended by the First Minister and TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber.

Reading between the lines, it looks as if the plan is for the proposals emanating from Wednesday's meeting to be signed off by the WLGA top brass as soon as possible afterwards, so they can be presented to the a meeting of the Workforce Partnership Council, which brings together employers and unions, either just before or just after the TUC conference on the 26th.

Local government is desperate to avoid the kind of headlines that would be generated by 22 separate standoffs like that in RCT. The prize for them is an agreed set of cost-saving measures - as yet unspecified - which could be tweaked to match local circumstances but have basically been agreed by the unions on an all-Wales level. This should reduce, if not eliminate strife on a council by council basis.

Will it work?

It'll be tough. The TUC aren't in particularly compromising mood. Senior sources say they feel that councils, spooked by months of headlines about slashed budgets, are rushing headlong into staff cuts regardless of the actual level of budgets. There are even murmurings about getting the Assembly Government to step in if the measures are seen as excessive.

According to the WLGA, the rationale for starting with local government when it comes to workforce flexibility is that it has a large number of employees and has a major impact on the Welsh economy in terms of services to the community, jobs and contracts with external companies and providers.

They point out that it is also the most complex both in terms of the business and its composition as 22 separate sovereign employers. It could set the template, however, for a pan-public sector approach in Wales.

The stakes are high. If the two sides can find enough common ground it could make the process of dealing with the cuts far more harmonious and avoid damaging industrial action and institutional paralysis.

If consensus can't be found, then judging by the rhetoric thus far, years of anything but harmony lie ahead with precious little to bring together employer, worker and you and me, the service user, at exactly the time they all need to be pulling in exactly the same direction.

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