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United Voice is today staging a protest outside a Melbourne restaurant at the centre of a bartender's underpayments claim and says its investigation of the state's hospitality sector exposes the city as the "wage theft capital of Australia".

In a ruling that underlines the Fair Work Ombudsman's pursuit of accessorial liability against advisors, a court has for the first time imposed a fine on an accountancy firm involved in an employer's underpayments.

The High Court has refused to grant special leave to appeal a full Federal Court finding that a CFMEU official needed a federal entry permit to assist a health and safety representative when he was invited onto a construction site under Victorian OHS laws.

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency says "remarkable" growth in employers analysing their data for gender pay gaps means more than half now have formal strategies to address imbalances, but its annual scorecard reveals the overall $26,527 gender pay gap has decreased only marginally.

The FWO has initiated its first contempt of court application against a Cairns businessman for allegedly breaching a freezing order by transferring $41,035 out of two company accounts to a family trust when still owing $85,000 to the Commonwealth and former employees.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has quietly established a special unit that has multiple investigations afoot in the commercial construction industry.

The High Court will next Friday hear special leave applications from WorkSafe Victoria and a CFMEU official who are challenging a full Federal Court finding that he needed a federal entry permit to assist a health and safety representative when invited onto a construction site.

In a decision signalling potential judicial pushback against so-called "sham" agreements, a Federal Court has quashed a two-year-old deal approved by three employees that now covers more than 1000 mining services workers, ruling that the employer made inadequate efforts to explain a document benchmarked against 11 different awards.

In one of the first extended discussions about the capacity to include incidental matters in modern awards, the FWC has called for further submissions on how or whether to incorporate a standard clause that would permit employers to deduct up to five weeks pay when employees quit without giving sufficient notice.

Magnum forcing agreement overhaul, says Streets; Toll slapped for refusing casual conversion; Court imposes "unusual" penalty for CFMEU coercion.