The goal of the New Zealand trade union movement is to improve the lives of working people and their families.

The role of the CTU is to promote unionisation and collectivism through programmes of active campaigns.

The preamble to the CTU constitution states:

The NZCTU exists to unite democratic Trade Unions, to enable them to consult and co-operate with each other for the common good, and to help achieve the agreed aims and objects of the NZCTU by acting in unison and in accordance with democratic majority decisions.

The NZCTU declares that wage and salary earners, and the unions which represent them, have certain basic rights which are recognised in international declarations:

1. the right to useful employment, to social security, to social justice, human rights and equal opportunity;
2. the right to organise and to form and join Trade Unions;
3. the right to bargain collectively with the employer,
4. the right to strike.

The NZCTU will:

1. recognise Te Tiriti o Waitangi as the founding document of Aotearoa/New Zealand
2. uphold the principles of democracy, including the democratic means of changing Governments;
3. champion the cause of peace and human freedom;
4. oppose and combat totalitarianism and aggression in any form. It pledges solidarity and support to all working people deprived of their rights as workers and human beings by oppressive regimes.

The NZCTU declares that all workers should enjoy equal rights and opportunity at the workplace, within Trade Unions, and in society at large.