And here we go again, another scapegoat being driven through town. While I'm not a smoker and don't take explicit coffee or tea breaks, the idea that employee breaks alone actually have a meaningful impact on operating results is pretty absurd. Ultimately, this suggests that employees are all just shirkers anyway - a theme that's been running through all these discussions lately.
The fact that idle time and wasted work hours are often caused by absurd organizational structures in companies is conveniently overlooked. If I think about how much working time was squandered on meetings that turned out to be completely pointless in hindsight, I couldn't make up for it with breaks until retirement (especially since there seems to be an endless supply of meetings that later turn out to be pointless).