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Over the weekend, the Australian Workers Union and the national branch of the Community and Public Sector Union called or Mr Setka to quit after a series of controversies, including allegations he disparaged domestic violence campaigner Rosie Batty.

But Mr Setka, who faces court next week on charges of harassing a woman, still shows no sign of leaving his post despite the nation’s most senior union leader, ACTU secretary Sally McManus, trying last week to persuade him to go.

The AWU and the CPSU’s calls for Mr Setka to go bring to 12 the total number of large unions that want his resignation from the CFMMEU.

He has the support of his own branch and that of the NSW arm of the union, as well as close allies the Electrical Trades Union in Victoria and the Maritime Union of Australia.

ETU Victoria secretary Troy Gray told the Australian Financial Review on Monday that he was now questioning, in the wake of Mr Albanese's move against Mr Setka, if his union and the Labor Party remained the right "fit".

A meeting of the Victorian Trades Hall, the state’s peak union body, in Melbourne on Friday ended in deadlock as the unions present at the gathering were split over whether Mr Setka should stay or go, with the influential "blue collar" unions speaking up in his favour.

Meanwhile, a Labor source said the public spat with the CFMMEU and ETU would do major damage to the finances of the party, which is reliant on donations from the blue-collar unions.

"It's going to financially hurt us a lot," the source said.

The source said the party may also struggle to encourage corporate donors to support Labor after the federal election loss.

"The money from corporates is going to be very dry."

They said tensions within the union movement were now bubbling with the election lost and Bill Shorten no longer "keeping the show together".

"The blue collar unions are all banding together to defend John [Setka]," they said.

"They have a view all the other unions are participating in a political hatchet job."