(a) All employers, their officers, agents, and employees or representatives shall exert every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements concerning rates of pay, rules, wages, hours of employment, and conditions of work, and to settle all disputes, whether arising out of the application of those agreements or growing out of any dispute between the employer and the employees thereof.

(b) All labor disputes between employers and their employees shall, upon the request of either party, be considered within 15 days of the request, or at such times as may be mutually agreed to, and, if possible, settled, with all expedition, in conference between representatives designated and authorized so to confer, by the employer or by the employees thereof interested in the dispute. However, this obligation does not compel either party to agree to a proposal or make a concession. (1967, No. 198, § 4.)