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Throughout his campaign, incoming mayor Peter Carlisle was outspoken about ending furloughs, even if it meant job cuts. He often chided the previous administration for introducing furloughs, saying that in the private sector, workers would have been laid off instead.

“Everybody who’s got a job right now, including police officers and including the fire department, are lucky to have those jobs,” he said in an August radio appearance on KNDI. “We need to shoulder the same burden, and that’s tightening the belt, not having as many people employed when possible, or people not making across-the-board pay raises. We can do that if people stop being selfish, and start thinking about the greater good of their fellow officers, and more importantly the people they represent, which is our community.”

During the race, the four major unions representing city workers endorsed Carlisle’s opponent, acting mayor Kirk Caldwell, and Carlisle distinguished himself as the fiscal conservative. Widespread job cuts and stricter contract negotiations with unions were some of the steps he said he’d consider taking to get the city’s spending under control.

The tone Carlisle struck makes for an interesting dynamic as he takes office. Carlisle will be sworn in as mayor this afternoon at 4:30 p.m., and labor leaders are carefully watching the new mayor to see how swiftly and how aggressively he may make good on the campaign promises that could affect union members. He’ll have say in at least one large city union contract and has raised the possibility of breaking and renegotiating others.

“You know, Mr. Carlisle made a number of statements during the course of the campaign about what he believed was necessary,” said Randy Perreira, executive director of the Hawaii Government Employees Association (HGEA). “What people say in the campaign can always be one thing. But now he is going to be given an opportunity to look at the city’s finances. Basically, we’re telling the people we represent that we’ll just have to see. You can anticipate that the city will make changes, but they’re entering without making wholesale changes.”

So far, Carlisle’s team said the transition — a whirlwind two weeks since the Sept. 18 special election — has been devoted wholly to human resources. But it’s been more about assessing personnel than making sweeping layoffs.

“The transition team is meeting and interviews are taking place,” said Jim Fulton, Carlisle’s executive assistant. “We realize we need to work on the continuity of government.”

In discussing cabinet-level hiring decisions, Carlisle has emphasized that he values current city workers’ institutional knowledge. Carlisle himself brings experience from the past 14 years as Honolulu’s prosecutor, but he acknowledged that the new job will mean changes to some of his oldest working relationships.

“I’ve had years of day-to-day interaction with the police chiefs, the brass, and the line guys, and I’ve enjoyed every second,” Carlisle said. “I am not going to be around them as much. It’s a completely different thing, being in the mayor’s office. When you’re with the prosecutor’s office, that link is a bloodline.”

Leaders at the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers — or SHOPO — said they’re realistic about that changing dynamic, too.

“We’re hoping he doesn’t make cuts at the police officers level,” Stanley Aquino, SHOPO’s Honolulu chairman, said. “I just hope he makes an assessment first instead of jumping the gun. It’s like a wait-and-see right now, we’re all kind of in limbo.”

From a police perspective, Carlisle’s election comes at a critical time. The union’s contract expires June 30, and negotiators will have to determine what kind of agreement to pursue. Already, public safety officials — who aren’t furloughed — are working with a 5 percent pay cut this fiscal year. Aquino said he and others plan to sit down with the mayor for a first meeting in November.

“The key thing in this economy is trying to keep what we have,” Aquino said. “I don’t see any problem with keeping what we have, but I can see problems with trying to get a raise. We got to be somewhat responsible to the conditions of the city, also, and not be greedy. We want to make sure the city can afford a raise before we ask for one.”

Aquino said SHOPO leaders will wait for some more economic indicators before deciding what kind of contract to draft. But public safety officials do have a potentially strong leveraging tool in the November 2011 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, a global conference that will be held in Honolulu and will require a strong public safety presence.

“It’s a big conference and it has benefits to the state,” Aquino said. “If it goes sour or if it doesn’t, that’s the reputation. People around the world will see if Hawaii is a good place to have a conference.”

Leadership for the city’s other major public safety contingency, represented by the Hawaii Fire Fighters Association, declined to comment, and leadership at United Public Workers did not return repeated interview requests.

“Everybody’s just kind of waiting with bated breath,” HGEA’s Perreira said. “We talk to the UPW folks but I think we’re all facing the same thing. The initial reaction, if you will, has been dulled a little bit because Mr. Carlisle, to my knowledge, is not seeking wholesale courtesy resignations from the people who had been appointed (by the previous administration). It’s not one of those, ‘Eh, next week Monday, you’re outta here.’ We’re not seeing people packing boxes. Until he starts making some of those personnel decisions for his department, his cabinet, everybody, we have to wait.”

Union leaders are also waiting — “anxiously awaiting,” Perreira said — to see if their relationship with the new mayor will be anything like their relationship with the last mayor.

“With Mayor Hannemann, it was very easy to talk to him,” Aquino said. “His door was always open to SHOPO. I am not sure how wide open the door is going to be with Mr. Carlisle. We had an opportunity to have good supporters for us, that would be Hannemann and Caldwell. Since they’re out of the picture now, we have to work with the ones who are in.”

Even Caldwell, who lost to Carlisle by four percentage points in his bid for mayor, said he is hopeful that his former opponent will carefully weigh decisions about city workers’ jobs.

“Change is uncertain and uncertainty causes worry,” Caldwell said. “I think as soon as Peter comes in as the mayor, much of that uncertainty will go away. At the end of the day, I think that it’s one thing when you’re campaigning to say things and it’s another thing when you’re actually governing. We’ll have to see, once Peter has a full understanding of the city, what decisions he’ll make.”

All along, Carlisle has said he aims to end furloughs. He even speculated on the campaign trail that there might be an opportunity to do so before this fiscal year ends.

“What are my legal options? Can I sit there and say, ‘Look, furloughs are done. We’re not going to do it anymore.'” he said in a radio appearance on Rick Hamada’s KHVH talk show. “What was promised to those guys? What’s the legal obligation of the city and is there a way to break it or not?”