Labour Minister Nelisiwe Oliphant added her voice to the debate on "decent work" on Monday at the annual labour policy conference in Pretoria.

"Decent employment can only be successful when all stakeholders constantly keep in mind … the context of the South African and global economies, social realities such as poverty, inequality and education levels, and the long terms goals for South Africa which must be weighed against short term costs," she told delegates from organised labour – Cosatu, Fedusa and Nactu.

"Our aim is to create a policy framework to promote decent work," she said.

However, the "meaning of decent work" should include health and safety conditions of employees.

"When you talk about the workers that are working in a restaurant or a shop or whatever industry, ... you look at the health and safety under which those workers are working."

She added: "Workers should be trained to use whatever precautionary measures when it comes to their own safety.

"A living wage, yes, at a later stage it's going to be part of these things."

Oliphant said the recession had led to the loss of another million jobs, leaving about 6,4-million South Africans unemployed.

"Job creation is now an overriding priority for government, and hopefully for our social partners as well. The key test of our policies will have to be their ability to contribute to job creation.

"To put it another way, we have to ensure that our policies do not have negative consequences for employment."

She said the government wanted both "jobs and we must strive for decent work".

The International Labour Organisation defines decent work as "productive work for men and women in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity", she said.

"We need to start with productive work."

She warned that although the economy was showing signs of recovery, it remained fragile and unemployment was still unacceptably high.

"Successful and effective social dialogue is the only solution – but more than ever, we all need to move away from an attitude of winning regardless of the collateral cost, to an attitude of joint consensus-seeking in the interest of all."

President Jacob Zuma in his June 2009 state of the nation address said the "creation of decent workers will be at the centre of our economic policies".

However, last week, ANC secretary-general, Gwede Mantashe, raised the ire of Cosatu when he said the party would push to create jobs first, then worry about decent jobs later.

The ANC Youth League also warned the ANC not to drop the criteria of decent jobs in favour of creating more employment.

Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven said last week: "We support the ANC policy from its resolution in Polokwane and the 2009 election manifesto in which decent work was one of the priority areas."

He said it would be "a cause for concern" if the ANC backtracked on this intention.

The ANC wants to create five-million jobs in the next decade.