In much of the world people will complain to a government department if they are discriminated against, and expect the department to investigate impartially.
It is typically only in high-value cases (ie, C-level executives, sexual harassment cases where high levels of damages are expected etc) where people usually seek private representation.
(I'm from Australia, and this is the case here. In my state I'd use this procedure: http://www.eoc.sa.gov.au/eo-you/making-complaint)
P.S. 3 years maternity leave in Hungary looks really bad IMHO.
On the other hand, it looks really good for the children. This is worth paying for.
5 months don't look as too much to me; this notwithstanding many businesses only hire young women if they sign a blank resignation letter (which of course is illegal too, but very difficult to prove). I agree it's a very complicated matter.
The best solution imho would be to have more state-subsidized childcare solutions (we have some, but much less than needed), which would make young mothers more productive for employers, but I understand that most free-market advocates wouldn't agree :)
PS Yes I expect to win the case, because my wife's former employer so patently broke the rules. But here in Italy justice is so slow (next month there will be the first hearing, 8 months after we sued) and compensations so little that very often employers get away with it. I decided to go to court more to defend a principle than for an economic reason.
With generous (eg like in France) benefits per child, or generous unemployment benefits for young mothers, I could agree with more flexibility. The problem is, benefits cost immediate money from the State while putting the burden on families and businesses only costs in the long run. Given our current debt, the choice is very limited...
I think the best thing countries in Europe could do is implement something like a negative income tax and kill all that regulation and special programs/taxes/bureaucracy but I haven't even heard anyone in Europe propose such a move.
I don't think that deregulation is always right, but it is when you have too much - and we do have too much regulation, too much discretionarily applied.
Eliminate paper currency and only have digital transactions, force the banks to disclose accounts and transaction information to remove gray economy and use NIT scheme instead of all the special programs. That way everyone get's the same safety net when they are unemployed or poorly paid and you can have unregulated at-will employment because employees aren't forced to negotiate for bare minimum.
I don't think you understand his position at all. Trying to fire someone in Europe is often compared to adopting a child, lawyers will take cases against former employers on commission because the probability of winning the case is extremely high. There is no comparison when it comes to US at-will employment, for eg. you have to be able to prove that the employee you fired for coming drunk to work was really drunk, that you gave him written warnings, flowed the formal procedure etc. To be fair tough, employers often use employment agencies that exploit loopholes but it only serves to increase the cost of labor. The only ones benefiting from these laws are the public sector and government owned company employees (ironically even government owned companies resort to exploiting loopholes because even they can't operate under the regulation). And these are probably much higher percentage of workforce than in the US.
And the corruption he is talking about is tax evasion and gray market, that's a huge part of the economy in these countries.
Also, I'm thinking the "progressive tax" in the US kicks in at a much higher nominal amount then Hungary, and that it's disproportionate to the cost of living difference.