EAST PROVIDENCE — The teachers’ union has asked the Rhode Island Supreme Court to reverse a Superior Court ruling allowing the School Committee to roll back teachers’ salaries and require them to contribute to the cost of their health insurance. The appeal will be heard Feb. 5.

In the meantime, the School Department may continue to issue paychecks that reflect a 5 percent reduction in teacher salaries and impose a 20 percent contribution for health insurance premiums. These changes went into effect Jan. 16.

Superior Court Judge Mark A. Pfeiffer last week declined to block the payroll deductions, ruling that the city’s 500 teachers would not suffer irreparable harm if they wait until early March, when the state Labor Relations Board is expected to take up the merits of the union’s complaint that the unilateral pay cut amounts to an unfair labor practice.

In written arguments, the union says that a Supreme Court review of the dispute will “cut to the very heart of collective bargaining in this state — whether a party required by state law to collectively bargain is permitted to abandon that process at will.”

The high court will determine “if budgetary concerns trump applicable state laws that clearly and unambiguously require the [School] Committee to bargain” with the union “until a new written contract is reached and executed.”

The teachers’ contract expired Oct. 31 and the School Committee rejected a subsequent nonbinding arbitration award.

gmacris@projo.com