PAWTUCKET — A judge has ruled that Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island was guilty of an unfair labor practice when it banned a pro-union sticker worn as a lapel button during contract talks involving the contentious issue of mandatory overtime.

In a scathing 26-page decision, Judge Wallace H. Nations accused hospital officials of making an issue of the sticker either to drum up support for their bargaining position or out of frustration with the negotiations, which were dragging on inconclusively while the union attacked the hospital in the newspaper and on TV.

“I believe that the “KNOW RESPECT” sticker was banned by the hospital as part of its tactics in negotiations or out of frustration with the negotiations and for no other reason,” Nations said in the July 20 decision.

A hospital news release that characterized the sticker as stressful to patients and inflammatory “appears to me to be trying to create an issue around the button to garner support for the Hospital’s bargaining position,” the judge wrote.

Nations, an administrative law judge for the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C., also found hospital officials guilty of intimidating employees by interrogating them about whether they planned to cross the picket line in the event of a strike.

The employees weren’t told the reason they were being questioned so that the hospital could call in enough non-union employees to take care of patients during a walkout, Nations said.

“In each case, the supervisor failed to provide any assurance that employees would be shielded from reprisals regardless of how they responded to the question of whether or not they intended to cross the picket line,” he wrote.

Memorial Hospital said it was disappointed with the ruling, which requires the hospital to post notices announcing that the actions that its supervisors took were illegal and to undo the disciplinary measures that were taken against nine button-wearing nurses who were union members.

“It was never our intent to stifle union members’ free expression. We respect and value all of our employees. Our concern at the time was, as it always is, our patient’s well being,” hospital spokeswoman Louise C. Paiva said.

“A decision on whether to appeal the ruling has not yet been made and is under consideration with legal counsel,” Paiva said.

Chris Callaci, a field representative for the United Nurses & Allied Professionals, hailed the decision as a “complete victory,” noting that both of the unfair labor practices charges that the union brought against Memorial Hospital had been upheld.

The charges arose from the hospital’s actions during last summer’s dispute over a new contract for nurses and other unionized hospital employees.

Although the dispute was settled without a strike, the key issue — mandatory overtime — lingers. On June 29, Governor Carcieri vetoed a House bill that would have banned the practice, except in emergencies, at health-care facilities all over the state.

In his veto message, Carcieri characterized mandatory overtime as a collective bargaining issue. The governor’s spokesman, Jeff Neal, said yesterday that the governor believes that disputes over the practice should be settled through contract talks, not legislated out of existence by the General Assembly acting at the union’s request.

Callaci was critical of Carcieri, saying the governor either didn’t notice what happened during the contract talks between Memorial Hospital and Local 5082 of the United Nurses & Allied Professionals, or didn’t care.

Mandatory overtime is a stopgap measure taken to prevent interruptions in patient care because of inadequate staffing. It involves ordering nurses about to finish to one eight-hour shift to work all or part of another shift when a staff shortage occurs.

Upset that the hospital had rejected a union-backed proposal to end the practice, on Aug. 25, nurses at Memorial Hospital began wearing buttons that said “KNOW RESPECT” in letters that faded so that the message became “NO RESPECT.”

The buttons first appeared on union members’ lapels three days after Local 5082 issued a strike notice. Lisa Pratt, Memorial’s vice president for human resources, said she found the buttons objectionable because the message was “ambiguous.”

“Who was it directed at?” Pratt testified. “What did it mean?”

At Pratt’s request, hospital employees were ordered to stop wearing the buttons. Nine nurses received verbal or written warnings when they refused.

jcastell@projo.com