Why can’t they shop and buy food while off duty and bring in a couple bags of food when their shift starts?
They have storage and refrigerators at the fire house, no?
Should we be paying government workers to go shopping in government vehicles?
Even in the private sector, this lunacy prevails. For example, I'm not allowed to send emails to my hourly employees after working hours because it would constitute "overtime" for them to read them. So if I compose emails after hours, I have to set them up to go out for delivery at 9 the next morning.
Yes, my company was sued for this in a class action. All those poor employees getting "stressed out" by seeing emails from their boss after hours.