Catholic teachers want their life back

Teachers from 200 Catholic schools across NSW are striking over fears independent schools will be "deregulated" and work conditions wound back.

Higher duty allowances would be stripped, class size restrictions scrapped, sick leave reduced and meal breaks taken away under a new employment proposal from Catholic employers, the NSW Independent Education Union (IEU) says.

Catholic school teachers and IEU members from Sydney and the Central Coast stopped work for three hours on Tuesday to protest against the proposed changes.

Their colleagues in Parramatta, Penrith, the Blue Mountains and the Hills district will take the same action on Wednesday.

"They (Catholic employers) have made their intentions clear: they want to deregulate (and) to undo all that we have done, to take what we have won," IEU general secretary John Quessy told the rally in Sydney's CBD.

"They want to remove every safety net, to dismantle regulation and to eliminate what entitlements they can."

Mr Quessy, a former teacher, said employers were proposing to wind back work conditions under the guise of "flexibility".

"Flexibility: the five syllable f-word that strikes fear into the hearts of every (worker)," he said.

Around 500 teachers and support staff marched through Sydney's CBD with "I used to have a life - now I am a teacher" signs.

They stopped at the Catholic Commission for Employment Relations head office where they briefly chanted and spoke to journalists, before ending their protest and returning to work.

Commission executive director Tony Farley said the stop-work action caused unnecessary anxiety for parents, but added that "most" Catholic schools across the state remained open.

He said the draft agreement was only an "idea" and negotiations were ongoing.

"So we're a little surprised that the union decided to move down the path of a 1970s adversarial campaign," he told reporters.

The Catholic Commission for Employment Relations represents Catholic employers during labour negotiations.