Reference to snakes and cockroaches, counter-revolutionaries and "tuck shop parties" are more commonplace than before, as are claims of purges and persecution.
Some of the arguments stemming from this may now land in court. Phillip Dexter, the sacked treasurer of the SA Communist Party and long-serving director of the National Education, Health and Allied Worker's Union (Nehawu) investment company, is contemplating legal action following his axing as a director.
Dexter is now an executive member of the Congress of the People.
He would not comment yesterday because of "pending legal action", but did tell a seminar in Cape Town last week that he had heard he had been "sacked from the board" via the internet.
But Sello Mkhondo, the Nehawu Investment Company (NIC) chief executive, maintains that the parting of the ways was "amicable" and that the only dispute "is about the settlement".
Dexter, a founding member of the NIC, a R1 million firm that grew to a R2.5 billion enterprise, served as chairman for 12 years until last June. Then it was apparently agreed that he would step down to become executive director of resources.
But a central executive committee meeting of the union decided last October that he should be axed. The national office bearers of the union are the members of the union trust that controls all of the shares in the NIC.
His sacking has again raised questions about finances, especially since Nehawu has been the Cosatu union at the forefront of election campaigning for the ANC.
The union has produced red T-shirts bearing the ANC logo and the slogan: I'm a Nehawu volunteer - Vote ANC.
"Somebody has to pay for those shirts," remarked a disgruntled Nehawu official who had heard a rumour to the effect that the NIC had parted with R20 million to bolster the union's coffers and "pay for the election campaign".
The circumstances of Dexter's sacking and the allegations surrounding Nehawu finances have given added impetus to the often slanderous name calling.
But it is a development that resembles some of the same activities indulged in by various factions during the tumultuous days that brought about the formation of Cosatu as a federation in 1985.
Then there were labels such as "yellow unions" interspersed with Trotskyists, workerists, charterists and the inevitable snakes and cockroaches. "Counter-revolutionary" was also common then.
The main division in those days - and there were numerous splinters as well - was between the workerists and charterists: one wanting a charter of only working-class demands, the other supporting the broad and generally vague Freedom Charter.
The workerists also opposed party political affiliation, fearing that the worker movement might be "hijacked by elements who will have no option but to turn against their worker supporters".
Since Polokwane, the political alignment of Cosatu has become evident because of the sides taken in the squabbles within the ANC. This has brought to breaking point tensions within unions.
Teachers, miners, metalworkers and chemical workers are all affected.
"It's back to the future," agrees Victor Mabuyakhulu, a dissident unionist from Secunda. "We are sorting out the problems from 1985," he added.