Getúlio Vargas

The Consolidation of Labour Laws that Vargas decreed in 1943 still governs Brazilian employment, from the minimum wage and paid holidays to the signed work card that marks formal jobs. He also founded the steel company at Volta Redonda and, in his elected second term, Petrobras. The awkward fact is how much of this came from the Estado Novo dictatorship of 1937 to 1945, with censorship, political prisoners and unions placed under state control.