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Literally a tool of capitalism

From the article:

As it turns out, what we consider a “coffee break” in the United States is actually explicitly tied to a 1955 court case, the United States vs. Phil Greinetz of Los Wigwam Weavers. 

Greinetz owned the Denver tie factory Los Wigwam Weavers and, after World War II, struggled to find staff up for the surprisingly arduous task of tie making. To encourage productivity, he introduced mandatory coffee breaks so that workers would have the energy to make it through their shifts fully alert. One problem, though. Like bad bosses throughout history, Greinetz didn’t want to pay his employees for the time he demanded they spend drinking coffee. Eventually, the U.S. Department of Labor became involved, with the court ultimately deciding, in a rare win for the working person, that employers had to cover coffee breaks since the business was positively affected by employees being jacked up on caffeine.