I've just had a discussion with my boss regarding work hours and he's told me that I've done 30 minutes less every day than I'm meant to. I've been doing 8 hr days including a 30 minute lunch break (works out to around 38hr weeks). I'm on a yearly salary and am a full time employee.
He has claimed that there's no award for engineers, however I've found this Professional Employees Award which appears to cover engineers (I graduated just under 3 years ago, so probably fall into the Graduate Engineer category).
What I want to know is if I've been in the wrong all this time or what. I've re-read my contract, which states "Standard work week consists of a minimum 40 hours, Monday to Friday", however this seems to include a 1hr lunch break (as that's how long everyone in the office takes for lunch). I'm not sure if I'm in the wrong for misunderstanding this but there's no mention of lunch break lengths or any details of this in my contract.
Advice is appreciated as I don't want to show him that award if it doesn't apply to me for some reason.
EDIT: Loving the advice guys, please keep it coming. :) I realise I probably could be a bit more pro-active and energetic, so I'll try working on that. I still don't really feel like I've done anything wrong with my work hours, but it always helps to be positive hehe.
EDIT2: Cheers for the feedback guys. I know there's definitely pro's to working here, so I'll just try to focus on those rather than dwelling on the lack of work haha. Could be a lot worse I guess. And you've answered my original question about paid lunch breaks, so I guess there's no helping it aha.
EDIT3: Just to clarify - I have no qualms working 45hr weeks if required. What I have an issue with is being asked to stay in the office over 38hrs when I have maybe 15 hours of billable work to do every week. There is NO WORK TO DO. Yes, I will look for a new job when I can, but that doesn't seem smart at the minute given the economic situation of the world. So just trying to figure out whether I suck it up and just sit in my chair for a few extra hours a week, or if I actually tell him that he's not allowed to ask more than 38 unless there's actually work that needs doing.
Your contract appears to be quite clear. Those are the hours of work, and wouldn't normally include any time taken for lunch.