South African workers will be more determined to fight for a living wage after the release of the Sunday Times rich list, the Congress of SA Trade Union (Cosatu) said.

"The Sunday Times rich list of wealth ownership and earnings confirms that the world's most unequal society is growing more unequal by the day," said spokesman Patrick Craven.

He said the top earner in 2010, Shoprite CEO Whitey Basson, took home R627.53 million in salary, perks and share options.

"This easily surpasses the income of the 2009 top earner Pine Pienaar, who made a mere R63m," Craven said.

He said workers at Shoprite and Checkers should take note of Basson's income when they tabled their next wage increase demand.

"In 2008, Basson's total remuneration was R16.64m and R24.13m in 2009, so his 2010 income represented an increase of 2501 percent over two years."

BHP Billiton CEO Marius Kloppers received a total of R77.53m "a 43 percent rise on his earnings from 2009".

Bernard Kantor, Investec's managing director, made R56.69m in 2010, according to the list.

"These figures make nonsense of the argument that companies need to pay such vast amounts in order to retain top skills, because more than 20 of the top 100 highest paid executives in 2010 are no longer in their positions today," said Craven.

Cosatu was forging ahead with its living wage campaign, which was aimed at raising the workers' wages and narrowing the gap between rich and poor.

He said the figures proved that South Africa was a rich country, but that the distribution of that wealth left just 20 people owning R112.2 billion, while 48 percent of South Africans were living below the poverty level of R322 a month.

Sixteen percent of employed workers earned less than R500, 33.4 percent earned less than R1000 and 60 percent earned less than R2500 a month, said Craven.