In a critical discussion of industrial relations and care research the article addresses labour conflicts “alongside and “below” publicly visible labour disputes in care work, using the example of residential child and youth care. The focus is on the question of actors, (workplace) settings and modes of dealing with labour conflicts. Using empirical material in the form of qualitative interviews with care workers, we focus on the interests and normative claims of care workers. We examine how these are embedded in the various modes of conflict resolution outside of collective bargaining, public disputes and union organisation. We reconstruct six different modes of dealing with labour conflicts. These can be differentiated along the dimensions of actors and modes of performance but also analysed within their interrelationships.