Labour has ruled out making less restrictive strike laws a manifesto commitment for the next general election.
Activists, ministers and unions have been in negotiations at the party's national policy forum in Warwick since Friday.
Calls to revive rights to secondary picketing and measures to make striking easier, rejected by Gordon Brown as a "return to the 1970s", were defeated.
The party and the unions issued a joint statement welcoming the agreement of a "serious set of policies for the future of Britain".
The move will help ministers dismiss Conservative suggestions that Labour is at the beck and call of the unions, which provide 90 per cent of the party's funding.
The forum agreed the right to unpaid time off to deal with urgent parental issues should be extended to all those with children up to the age of 16.
And it backed giving the minimum wage to workers from 21, rather than the current 22, and for a target to treble the number of apprenticeships.
Controversial government policies including building a new generation of nuclear power stations, a welfare crackdown and ID cards were also approved.
Plans to give all primary pupils free school meals were not approved, although it was agreed councils would be encouraged to follow a pilot study in Hull.
Policy forum vice chairman Simon Burgess said: "This has been a comprehensive policy process unique in British politics. We have spent three years in close conversation with the British people, the trade unions, business and voluntary organisations.
"We have worked together, debated keenly and reached agreement on a serious set of policies for the future of Britain.
"Our agreed policy platform matches the aspirations and concerns of British people. This stands in stark contrast to the vague, shallow words of the Tories."
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd