The declaration creating the FPU was signed by 25 national and 24 regional trade unions.

The aim of the FPU is to express and represent the interests and protect the rights of its member organisations, coordinate their collective actions, promote unity in the trade union movement, represent and protect labour and the socio-economic rights and interests of trade union members before state and local authorities, represent the interests of members in their relationship with employers and their organisations and represent its members in interactions with other citizens’ associations.

The FPU is participating in the United Nations Global Compact and has a consultative status with the UN ECOSOC.

In June and July 2011, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office opened 35 criminal cases regarding the illegal appropriation of sanatoriums run by the FPU.

[1] In June 2014, a group of people wearing army fatigues bearing the insignia of Right Sector and Social-National Assembly stormed the FPU Council in Kyiv in an attempt to disrupt the election of a new leadership.