COUNCIL workers and bosses appear to be heading for a showdown.

Without doubt, the next few years will see huge changes at our local authorities as we face up to the reality that there is nowhere near enough money to go around.

But who is going to blink first?

In Neath Port Talbot, talks about £24 million of savings have reached stalemate.

The authority wants to alter terms and conditions in an effort to avoid compulsory redundancies.

But Eddie Gabrielsen, regional organiser for council workers' union Unison, said that among the changes he understood were being proposed were a cut in overtime payment, a cut in mileage rates, a cut in the use of council vehicles and a cut in meal allowances for staff who went out of county. He said: "All the things they are suggesting are falling on the lower paid."

He said discussions with the council had not reached an agreement to date because the union was seeking more job security in return for taking the proposed cuts.

However, the bottom line in cost-cutting discussions at councils across the region is that there is a pot of money to be spent on local government — and that pot is getting smaller and smaller.

All of our councils are facing up to the fact huge financial blackholes need to be filled.

Neath Port Talbot is hoping to save £24 million, while Swansea Council has to close a £17 million gap. Last year, Neath Port Talbot Council announced it was looking to shed 750 posts.

And Carmarthenshire Council also warned that 500 jobs could go.

At Swansea Council, efforts have been made to cut posts rather than people, with little success.

In February 2009 the authority announced it would seek to lose 500 jobs by 2012 through natural wastage — not filling vacancies.

However, last month, the council confirmed, almost half-way through the process, just 140 jobs had been lost.

Council leader Chris Holley said the council would have a clearer picture of whether compulsory redundancies would take place by September.

He said: "I think there will be a few, but how many there will be, I don't know."

It appears union bosses are not willing to budge and council bosses need to make savings.

So what is the answer? In the long term, there is little chance that more money will miraculously appear.

But unions have said punishing the poorest paid workers is not the answer.

So are we heading for strike action?

Last month, following an attack by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg on what he described as "unreformed gold-plated" public sector pensions, Mike Davies, Unison's branch secretary at Swansea Council, said industrial action could be an option.

He said: "If there was any proposal to alter the scheme in any way, we would be balloting on industrial action."

Neath Port Talbot Council appears to have been making an effort to avoid compulsory redundancies by seeking to save money from terms and conditions, but unions said it was the poorest-paid workers who were bearing the brunt of the pain.

The flip side is that workers want to see savings made further up the chain. Councillor expenses and allowances, mayoral transport and six-figure salaries for senior officers are all issues of complaint.

In the grand scheme of things, trimmings are just a drop in the ocean and will come nowhere near to filling the gaping holes in authority budgets.

However, it might not be a bad idea to be a little more sensitive — what will be the reaction of a council employee facing a cut in their income, or worse the loss of their job, when they see a senior council official being driven to their next appointment in the lap of luxury, at the taxpayers expense?