> I recognise that Germany/Austria/France are different, but that's exactly my point, there is very little common European labour law.

So, I don't live in Germany but I tried to look into how things work there a little deeper.

It seems to have a lot in common with what you describe about Ireland actually.

That's possible, but Germany has much stronger unions and work contracts than we would in Ireland.

In Ireland, companies are not obliged to recognize a union and can do other forms of employer representation instead. This is quite different from other EU countries.