I don't know about the authenticity of this declaration; however, I do have experience of this myself as a waitress when I worked a split shift and therefore got no breaks.  I didn't last very long there.

Also, co-workers who were tellers at a local bank had a manager who forbid everyone, but one pregnant employee, to sit.  This proclamation was made even though one of her oldest (both in seniority and age) tellers had Plantar's Faciaitis, a very painful foot condition.  The weird thing is that there was no company policy against the teller's having stools to sit on, and this manager did allow one person to have one, but no one else.  Other branch manager's let their teller's sit on stools on ocassion.  Go figure, it's just another way for the high and mighty to exert control over the peons.  Makes 'em feel like minor despots, I guess.

I also had a job where I was severely reprimanded for getting up from my desk to walk around and stretch my back.  I'm afraid the work world has never been really good to the workers unless they had a union backing them, and there's trouble with union's who get too big for their britches too.  Once in a miraculous while, you get a boss/company that realizes that happy/healthy workers are the most productive, creative, and desirable to work with.  Unfortunately, this type of enlightened thinking is all too rare, and so here we are . . .

Good luck out there!

Natalie