Something that just occurred to me.
This is either just corporate greed, or the company is on very shaky financial grounds. Trying to keep corporate coffees full off your employees is crappy, and sure doesn't inspire employees to loyal to the company. And if the company is in that bad shape financially, that using employees money to keep it afloat, is just bad too.
Or, none of the above; I’ve seen stupider ideas proposed by executives. I can understand that everything is on the table when it comes to cost control in the current environment, and labor is the most expensive cost to control.
What boggles my mind is someone in HR let it get as far as it did.