New York Times Union Found in Contempt : Labor: A federal judge says further disruptions will cost a group representing drivers up to $500,000 an hour.

A federal judge on Monday found a union representing newspaper delivery drivers for the New York Times in contempt of court and ordered it to pay unspecified compensatory damages.

U.S. District Judge Pierre N. Leval said the Newspaper and Mail Deliverers Union of New York and Vicinity will also be required to pay the New York Times $100,000 for every hour during which further disruptions occur.

He said the fine would be increased to $500,000 for every hour that the delivery of the newspaper’s Sunday edition is obstructed.

Through only token communication with picketers, the union proved during the four days since Leval issued a restraining order that it “supported their obstruction of the deliveries and was only mouthing an opposing message as protection from legal action,” the judge wrote.

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 Times’ distribution problems also affected the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal, which use the same wholesaler for delivering some of their papers.

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. Publisher Sulzberger vowed Monday to proceed with the plant opening.