PUHI, Kaua'i — The University of Hawai'i Board of Regents yesterday suspended its policies on employees of the Research Corporation of the University of Hawai'i and ordered the administration to work with unions, faculty and others to form a proposed new policy.

In the meantime, there are no limits on how long RCUH employment can run, university interim President David McClain said. One policy had limited employment to one year.

"This should allay concerns that have been existing among researchers at RCUH," he said.

The RCUH was established to manage grants received by university faculty, and serves as the employer of specialists hired under those grants. The agency has 2,600 employees. The Hawai'i Government Employees Association has suggested that some of those workers have long-term jobs that look very much like standard university positions, and should probably be moved from RCUH — a nonunion employer — to the university.

The HGEA has filed a Hawai'i Labor Relations Board complaint about the last board policy, and union field services officer Leiomalama Desha said the HGEA will need to study the regents' latest decision before deciding how to deal with it.

McClain said the university administration has been in discussions with the union about the RCUH issues and will continue reviewing its ideas with the HGEA.

Regents chairwoman Kitty Lagareta said the board wants to ensure that the RCUH has the flexibility it needs to keep attracting research money to the university.

The regents had been presented with a petition signed by more than 1,000 University of Hawai'i faculty members and RCUH employees, calling on them to eliminate limits on the length of RCUH employment and to let the principal investigators who actually obtain the grants decide whether it is more appropriate that grant-funded workers be employees of the university or the RCUH.

Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com.