 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. The noted magazine The Economist has declared Italy as its country of the year for 2021. Among the reasons it has cited are a competent internationally respected prime minister in Mario Draghi and a process of thoroughgoing reform. It has also mentioned the country's performance on the COVID-19 front and the economic recovery as reasons to celebrate. But the many protests on the streets of Italy over the past year do not seem to bear out this analysis. Italian people's movements have been harshly critical of the Draghi government for its economic policies, which they have termed as anti-worker. So what is behind the headlines and the bright announcements? Maurizio Coppola of Paterial Coppolo explains. First of all, the Economist edition of December 18 declared Italy as their country of the year for three reasons mainly. First of all, the new Prime Minister Mario Draghi is a responsible and confident person that gave back international recognition to Italy. After decades of non-international recognition due also to prime ministers as Silvio Berlusconi, for example. A second reason is like the rapid economic recovery Italy is living in this post-pandemic situation. And third, the management of the pandemic. Why Italy is not our country of the year? Because first of all, Mario Draghi was not elected by the people as a Prime Minister, but he was imposed by the President Sergio Mattarella when the former Prime Minister Conte was in crisis with the coalition. So there was no elections in February 2021. And this translated itself also in a growing distance between the popular needs, the people's needs and the political institutional processes. For example, a couple of months after the institution of Mario Draghi as Prime Minister in Italy, there were local elections in Italy. And these local elections saw a very high abstentionism, a very high percentage of people not participating in the elections. So this is one of very important elements to show that in Italy there is a growing distance between the popular needs, the people's needs and the institutional processes. So this detachment is causing huge divergences inside of the Italian society. Then also a second thing is that beginning of December, the unions called for a general strike against the measures of Mario Draghi because the budget bill he was to implement didn't contain any welfare redistribution measures for the working people. So the unions, even the bigger unions that in general are very aligned to the government's line, decided to call for a general strike. And every party of the parliament that is supporting Mario Draghi criticized the call for a general strike by the unions. And the day after, because I mean the general strike was for very good reasons, because in Italy we have social problems, because the working situation of workers is not okay because exactly of this budget that was voted in the parliament. So there are social reasons to make a strike. The parties in Mario Draghi criticized the general strike. And the day after they vote against legislative proposals against relocations. They are against minimal wages. So there is no way, there is no urgency for the Italian government to respond to the social needs of the working people. And on the other side, they criticize every political action unions and leftist parties are taking. So this is one of the most important reasons why Mario Draghi is not our man of the year and why Italy is not our country of the year. Then we can talk about the economic recovery. We have always to ask for whom is this economic recovery. Italy, okay, the recovery of 2021 is very high. Also the European Commission is predicting an over six percent economic recovery for Italy. But first of all, Italy had also a very big crash of economy during 2020. So the recovery is not so high as it is presented. And secondly, exactly the question I asked before for whom you have always to ask for whom the economic recovery is. And there are at least two elements that shows that there is an economic recovery for the private companies and for the rich and not for the working class. The first element is that Italy in the last 30 years, it's the only OECD country that lift wages dropped in the last 30 years by around 3 percent in 30 years. So we have like other countries of the OECD that where the wages rose. But in Italy, it's the only country where these wages dropped by 3 percent. And this means also that the working poor, so people working every day waking up every day to go to the workplace, they are poor. This percentage of the working people who is poor, rise from 26 to 33 percent in 30 years. So there is not an economic stability. There is not an economic recovery for the working people. A second element, and this is something very important, because in the last days, we lived in Italy very hard and very tragic, tragic workplace accidents. The people dying at the workplace is rising every year. We have today three people per day dying at the workplace. In the first 10 months of 2021, in Italy, there are over 1,000 people dying at the workplace. And why is this like this? Because the stress, the pressure at the workplace is increasing. Because the labor inspector rate doesn't have the power to punish also companies not respecting labor security standards and so on. And Mario Draghi, concerning the wages, concerning the security at the workplace, is not doing anything to improve the situation of working people. And at the end, we can talk about the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. Of course, Italy has a very high vaccination rate compared to the other countries. It's only the third country in Europe. Only Spain and Portugal has more as a higher vaccination rate. But there is also other huge problems that the pandemic now in this next wave you are living is hitting very hard. Yesterday, we had a new record with over 55,000 people infected only in one day and 144 people dying. Why is it like this? Because the health care system is under stress. A health care system that in the last 20 years lived a dismantlement. We have like the GDP part going to the health care decreased from 2010 to 2020 from 7 to 6.3%. In Italy, there are 4,000 doctors missing in the health care institutions. There are 10,000 first aid nurses missing and there are 54,000 health care workers working with precarious contracts. There are precarious workers in the health care system. So this is a situation where the health care system is under stress when a pandemic, when an emergency is falling on the health care system. And we have to say that all European Union post pandemic recovery plan that's now Mario Draghi is implementing in Italy does not go to the roots of these problems. And this is the reason why we said that Italy is not our country of the year and Mario Draghi is not our prime minister of the year.