Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi also warned that despite signs of the recession being over, more jobs will be lost this December due to the government's failing economic policies.
Briefing journalists on the outcomes of the union federation's central executive committee meeting yesterday, Vavi said inflation targeting was also to blame for the high interest and exchange rates.
"We must do everything necessary to deal with this crisis, even China fixes its exchange rate and I think we should also look into a similar solution.
"We are calling for a bolder government that recognises the fact that we are in a deep crisis, not one that is a prisoner of how the markets perform," he said.
Vavi welcomed the new approach that the newly appointed South African Reserve Bank Governor Gill Marcus has adopted.
She has vowed to allow the union to participate in discussions surrounding inflation.
Vavi did not see eye-to-eye with Marcus's predecessor, Tito Mboweni, over his refusal to give Cosatu a platform to participate in policy discussions.
Early this year, the union also called for Mboweni's head before his term was finished.
"The CEC welcomed undertakings by the finance minister, comrade Pravin Gordhan, and the new governor to open discussions on macro-economic policy.
"The central message of the CEC is that the overall recovery of the economy cannot occur in the context of old policies that have failed to deliver sustainable livelihoods and industrial structure."
Vavi also said that more than 1million jobs are likely to be lost by the end of the year, and blamed this on the government being "slow" to respond to the recession.
He said the 959000 jobs lost in the past nine months would not be cancelled by the 0.9% growth in gross domestic product, announced by Statistics SA on Tuesday.
"We have been campaigning for the monetary and the fiscal policy to be changed," he said.
"We think that the policy has been a disaster for South Africa's development challenges."
He said Cosatu would develop a framework document to outline how the economy would need to change.
The federation would detail a policy position on exchange rate management, interest rate policy and inflation control.
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