Big business needs to be more "inclusive" and cater towards the needs of their employees, ANC deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa said according to a report on Thursday.
He said at an ANC breakfast in Port Shepstone, KwaZulu-Natal, on Wednesday that workers' lives were worth more than the salaries they earned, The Times reported.
"[Businesses] should go beyond just paying people. We should start asking ourselves where they live ... Human beings are not commodities," he said.
Ramaphosa left politics in 1997, after which he become a successful businessman.
Ramaphosa is also a director at Lonmin, the owner of the platinum mine in Marikana, North West, which lost 34 striking workers in a police shooting on August 16, 2012.
He said on Tuesday the shooting was a wake-up call for business.
"Very much of what went wrong at Marikana was because mining companies closed their eyes to being inclusive," he said.
Ramaphosa faced significant criticism when it emerged at a commission into the shooting, that he sent e-mails in which he called for "concomitant action" against the "criminal" strikers.
He said the ANC's leadership elected at Mangaung, in December was made up of the "crème de la crème" of the party.