More than 50 different international and national trade unions are represented in CBTU and there are 50 chapters in the United States and one in Ontario, Canada.

They also believed that the AFL–CIO might attempt to declare its neutrality in the forthcoming U.S. presidential campaign in which President Richard Nixon was seeking re-election.

The members of the CBTU thought that the re-election of Richard Nixon would continue hurtful policies to laborers such as unemployment, inflated prices, frozen wages, and appointing judges to the U.S. Supreme Court who did not consider the rights of minorities, workers, and the poor.

Bayard Rustin claimed that the CPTU was redundant because black trade unionists had already assumed leadership roles in their own unions and communities.

In 1974, it was the first labor organization in the United States to pass resolutions for the economic boycott of South Africa in response to its policies of apartheid.