The faculty union representing instructors at Pennsylvania’s 14 state-owned universities voted Thursday to hold campus-specific strike authorization votes early next month.

The announcement from the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Professors means that campus-by-campus balloting will take place Sept. 7 to 9. Votes will be cast on whether to give union leaders the authority to call a strike. The union’s membership includes 475 professors and 30 coaches at Slippery Rock University.

The 500 coaches represented by the union will hold their own strike authorization vote on Sept. 14 and 15.

The news comes as classes for the 107,000-student state system are scheduled to start Monday, and negotiators from APSCUF and the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education sat down Thursday for yet another two-day bargaining session.

The union’s 5,500 faculty members have been working without a contract since the old collective bargaining agreement expired on June 30, 2015, and both sides have become increasingly public about frustrations in recent months.

APSCUF leaders have accused state officials of avoiding major economic issues, such as compensation, during negotiating sessions. State officials, in turn, have accused the union of threatening to strike “from the earliest days of these negotiations.”

“Our faculty and coaches clearly feel that the State System has not negotiated fairly,” said APSCUF President Kenneth Mash. “They are more interested in playing games than negotiating seriously. It is completely unfair to our students for the State System to continue to drag this process out.”

Kenn Marshall, the State System’s spokesman, refuted Mash’s claims in an e-mail, saying financial strains across the system are hurting families and students.

“The current salaries of State System faculty are among the highest in the nation,” Marshall said. “We can only hope that APSCUF recognizes the potentially devastating impact that a strike would have on our students, and shares our commitment to continue to bargain toward a new agreement to ensure there will be no interruption in the fall semester.”

There has never been a strike of faculty in the 33-year history of the State System. The union previously gave strike authorization in 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2012.