Labor’s internal factions are gearing up for battle as more unions join the fight to keep Victorian CFMMEU boss John Setka in the party, as his own national executive stays silent.

Late Tuesday afternoon, the Victorian branch of the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union issued a statement in conjunction with the Electrical Trades Union, the Rail Tram and Bus Union, the Plumbers’ Union and the United Firefighters Union in support of Setka, while condemning the “political” environment which has led to the situation.

The leftwing unions’ joint call to arms came as the construction union national tier met in Canberra to consider the Setka matter, after Labor leader Anthony Albanese recommended the union boss be expelled from the party when its own national executive meets in July.

Setka has long courted controversy, but it was allegations of disparaging comments he made about anti-family violence campaigner Rosie Batty at a closed union meeting, which proved the tipping point for the Labor leadership group.

Setka denied he disparaged Batty in any way but conceded he mentioned her while referencing his own upcoming court case, where he faces charges of harassment of a woman using a carriage service. He has indicated he plans on pleading guilty.

Setka is due to face court on 26 June, a week before the Labor national executive will meet to consider his party membership.

Labelling the matter a “media circus” stemming from “manufactured leaks”, the left unions lashed out at “external interference in union matters”.

“When you attack the members’ right to choose their leadership, you are attacking the whole organisation and wider union movement,” the ETU Victorian state secretary, Troy Gray, said in a statement.

The disputed Batty comments were the impetus for the expulsion decision, which was made in conjunction with the Labor leadership group, but Albanese said it was Setka’s long history of courting controversy which ultimately led to the call.

Setka could try and take legal action against an expected expulsion from the Labor party, Albanese said. But he would most likely fail.

“The Labor party as an organisation is entitled to determine who joins us, what our membership is, like any other organisation,” Albanese told Sky News on Monday.

“And it’s very, very clear that the national executive has complete power to determine membership issues, that’s being dealt with in the courts before.

“So I’d say that anyone who wishes to waste money on legal cases particularly using other people’s money, that is the members of the union’s money, to fight legal cases which have no prospect of being successful.

“We of course have received legal advice at the time before I made my announcement.

“That’s why we did the suspension and then a process for the expulsion. That’s well-documented what we need to do, we are doing that. And on July the 5th I’m very confident that the national executive will support the motion to expel John Setka.”

In response the Victorian branch of the CFMMEU has dug its heels in, declaring its national executive needs to not only put out a public statement of support for Setka, but hunt out the leaks from the national executive.

In an unanimously supported resolution, Setka’s branch wanted the national executive to “immediately engage an independent investigator to commence an investigation including a forensic IT and phone audit of all employees, branch officials and national officers of the union, with access to the private documents”.

But the saga has the Victorians going further, moving to immediately cease “all financial and in-kind support” to the Labor party if Setka is expelled and as of Monday, “no longer recognise the traditional long-held membership coverage and demarcation lines with unions that have attacked this branch”.

Albanese, and Labor’s leadership team, have not blinked.

Under Labor’s rules, behaviour which can be considered to bring the party into disrepute can bring disciplinary action, which includes expulsion, a consequence which is explicitly spelled out in the national constitution.

While Labor may determine its own membership, it has no power over who leads the union movement. That forced Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus into the saga. Following a meeting with Setka, she demanded he resign from his position, despite having no powers to force him to do so.

The public call for Setka to step down, supported by the National Union of Workers, United Voice, the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance, the Australian Services Union, the Transport Workers’ Union and others, has set out a battle within the union movement which will reverberate beyond Labor’s next national meeting.

On that, Penny Wong had one thing to say.

“We are the labour movement,” she said on Tuesday, when asked about the stoush and union threats to cease donations and support to Labor.

“We are a collective and no individual is bigger than the movement.”