Besides calling for universal suffrage of the Chief Executive of Hong Kong and LegCo, the group also supported the pro-democracy movement in mainland China, including the struggle for independent trade unions.

The HKCTU emerged from the Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee (HKCIC), a church-sponsored labour organisation largely involved in the grassroots movements in the 1970s and 1980s.

[3] Days before transfer of sovereignty in 1997, with the support of the pro-democracy camp, the HKCTU successfully established statutory rights of collective bargaining of labour unions, which mandate employers to negotiate with labour unions on issues such as salaries, welfare and working hours, by introducing the Employee's Rights to Representation, Consultation and Collective Bargaining Bill as Lee Cheuk-yan's private member's bill.

Members of HKCTU were involved in organising a number of local protests, including the pivotal 2003 July 1 march to oppose the enactment of anti-sedition laws under Article 23 of the Basic Law (organised by the Civil Human Rights Front of which HKCTU is a member), and other protests to struggle for labour rights and democracy in Hong Kong and in mainland China.

At that time, co-founder and general secretary Lee Cheuk-yan was in jail for his involvement in the protests and chief executive Mung Siu Tat had announced on Facebook that he had left Hong Kong.