City and Suburban Delivery Systems, a subsidiary distribution service of the New York Times, which delivers to retail locations (i.e. stores, newsstands) in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, will be shut down in January, leading to a loss of about 550 jobs. Several other publications, most notably the Wall Street Journal, will be affected by this shutdown. Negotiations of severance pay will get under way with the Newspaper and Mail Deliverers Union of New York and vicinity shortly, a union that management has generally had shaky relations with. The Times cited the decision as a difficult one, but one that had to be made because of rising fuel prices and the increasing economic unfeasibility of the subsidiary.
See "Times will shut down its distribution subsidiary", Richard Perez-Pena, The New York Times, September 7, 2008