ASHLEY HALL: At a time when most unions are desperately trying to recruit members - the Electrical Trades Union is prepared to throw out those who don't obey its latest edict.

The ETU in Queensland and the Northern Territory is banning its members from working in uranium mines, nuclear power plants or any part of the nuclear fuel cycle.

Nicole Butler was at the launch of the ETU's cautionary DVD in Brisbane last night.

NICOLE BUTLER: "When the Dust Settles" is a cautionary DVD commissioned by the ETU and sent to its 14,000 members in Queensland and the Northern Territory.

EXTRACT FROM DVD SPEAKER 1: Comrades, this is about uranium mining and it's about the dangers associated with uranium and its associated products.

NICOLE BUTLER: It highlights the dangers by following a day in the life of a struggling Aussie family - the Sparkies.

Mr Sparkie's been offered a lucrative mining job at Roxby Downs, but the unpalatable thought of moving to the South Australian town prompts son Dylan to investigate.

EXTRACT FROM DVD SPEAKER 2: It's in the middle of the dessert, it's a uranium mine, it's a hole. 

EXTRACT FROM DVD SPEAKER 1: Yeah but it's a $180,000 a year hole.

NICOLE BUTLER: Young Dylan also finds internet sites that detail health risks associated with uranium mining and its products and that unnerves the family.

EXTRACT FROM DVD SPEAKER 3: Dad. Am I going to get cancer? 

EXTRACT FROM DVD SPEAKER 1: Good one Dylan you've freaked your sister out. This is Australia, not Zimbabwe; the government's not going to put our lives at risk. It's safe. 

EXTRACT FROM DVD SPEAKER 2: Like asbestos. 

NICOLE BUTLER: That comparison is at the core of the ETU's anti-nuclear campaign.

The Union's Peter Simpson says uranium is the new asbestos.

PETER SIMPSON: This stuff's been around for about 20 or 30 years in fairly big numbers in Australia. Well, now we're starting to see some of the health effects of it. It's the new asbestos as far as we're concerned; it's a ticking time bomb.

NICOLE BUTLER: What are those problems you're starting to see and in what sort of numbers?

PETER SIMPSON: That's the problem there's been no public data done on this. People come and go and work in uranium mines. There's no follow up treatments, there's no follow up medical checks. 

NICOLE BUTLER: The ETU in Queensland and the Northern Territory says it's so concerned about the health risks, it's taken the unprecedented step in Australia of banning its members from working in uranium mines, nuclear power plants or any part of the nuclear fuel cycle.

Mr Simpson says the union's taking the tough stand that politician's and corporations won't.

PETER SIMPSON: Unfortunately politics and the mining industry are two good bedfellows when it comes to short term thinking. 

NICOLE BUTLER: So far the union says its only had complaints about it’s campaign from six out of 14,000 members.

But there are concerns being voiced from a different corner. Ziggy Switkowski is chairman of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation.

ZIGGY SWITKOWSKI: I think the association with asbestos is deliberately provocative and reckless. A couple of the best studied consequences of excessive nuclear radiation exposure followed the Second World War and the communities in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We now have 65 years of data and there's no suggestion there that there are continuing or enduring consequences.

ASHLEY HALL: The chairman of the ANSTO, Ziggy Switkowski, ending that report by Nicole Butler.