N.Y. Times Asks Court to Act in Labor Dispute : Media: The firm wants the newspaper’s drivers’ union to be fined and held in contempt as violence and losses escalate.

The New York Times Co. asked U.S. District Judge Pierre N. Leval to fine and hold in contempt officials of the newspaper’s drivers’ union Monday as violence in a 5-day-old labor dispute continued to escalate.

In a temporary restraining order issued Friday, Leval had instructed members of the Newspaper and Mail Deliverers’ Union of New York and Vicinity not to interfere with deliveries of the Times and warned drivers against committing “terrorist acts” against the newspaper.

Times lawyer Bernard L. Plum cited a “pattern of blatant noncompliance,” including the firebombing of a fully loaded Times tractor-trailer, rock throwing, the puncturing of brake lines of four other trucks and numerous bomb threats and other acts of intimidation.

Union officials did not return several phone calls seeking comment, though in the past they have said they would comply with the judge’s order. They have also accused Times management of engaging in an “immoral” campaign to break the union.

The labor unrest has hampered deliveries of the Times in the suburban Long Island, Westchester and Connecticut areas served by the two affected distributors. On Sunday, for example, only 30% of the 341,520 newspapers ordered by wholesalers in those areas reached subscribers, the Times said, while on Monday 92% of the 226,980 copies ordered by the distributors got through.

The acts of violence and intimidation, including the alleged kidnaping of a driver, “go beyond my ability to express outrage,” Times Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. said. The dispute represents his first major challenge since he succeeded his father earlier this year as publisher.

Times officials said the dispute had already cost the newspaper “millions” of dollars in lost circulation and advertising revenue, as well as property damage. For the Sunday paper alone, the Times was forced to give advertisers $1.8 million in rebates because circulation was less than had been guaranteed, and the paper lost another $391,700 in circulation revenue, according to a court deposition.

The complicated dispute erupted Thursday when 220 union drivers were fired and replaced after rejecting contract terms offered by New Jersey businessman Arthur E. Imperatore, the new owner of two Times wholesalers involved in the dispute.

Imperatore’s purchase of the two wholesalers--Westfair Newspaper Distributors and Newspaper Distributors Co.--had the effect of invalidating the old union contract since labor contracts are automatically canceled after the sale of assets.

Imperatore, the Times and union leaders struck a new deal that would have preserved jobs and provided buyouts for some workers while loosening work rules and restricting overtime pay. But rank-and-file members of the union rejected the pact, triggering the current unrest.

The deal the drivers rejected was also believed to be the key to the Times opening its new $450-million color printing plant in Edison, N.J. Sulzberger vowed Monday to proceed with the plant opening.