A teacher for 26 years, John O’Neill, said Independent Education Union members at the Broulee Catholic high school will join colleagues at 38 other Canberra-Goulburn campuses in a three-hour stoppage.

Mr O’Neill said it would be the first stoppage at the school in more than a decade and followed state-wide “draconian” measures flagged by the Catholic Commission for Employment Relations.

“Teachers are outraged,” the union delegate said.

“We have been presented with a divisive and backward enterprise agreement. It is draconian and unnecessary. Our conditions have been removed and we have no protection.

“This has been the biggest shock to teachers in my teaching career.”

Mr O’Neill said class size limits had been removed and predicted an exodus from the Catholic system and perhaps from teaching itself if the measures went through.

“Now, we have set limit of 24 in a practical class, but we will go to 30 or more,” he said.

“This is not good for health or safety, or for education.

“I predict an exodus full stop.”

He said face-to-face teaching time had been increased, at the expense of preparation, while career paths had been abolished with the axing of senior positions.

“They have abolished all positions, so the only position in a school will be the principal and the rest will be teachers,” he said.

He said this meant subject coordinators, assistant principals and other positions would no longer exist.

“There will be no career path,” he said.

“The school would grind to a halt, because there would not anyone responsible for getting jobs done.

According to union organiser Jackie Groom, 77 per cent of Carroll College members voted in a secret ballot on the issue of whether to strike on Monday.

Of those, the decision was unanimous.

She said teachers had the Eurobodalla’s primary Catholic schools, St Bernards, Batehaven and St Mary’s, Moruya, had not taken part in the ballot or had not participated in enough numbers for their votes to be counted.

Mr O’Neill said the 38 schools in the Canberra-Goulburn diocese were the last to engage in rolling strike action in NSW, as their enterprise agreement had expired later.

He said the strike would begin at the start of the normal working day and last for three hours.

Strikers would hold a meeting in that time.

He said he did not know if all 55 members at Carroll College would take part.

“There will be members who will struggle with that decision,” he said.

Mr O’Neill said there was no economic justification for the push.

“The system is not broken,” he said.

“It works very efficiently at the moment.”