It is the purpose and policy of this chapter to prescribe the legitimate rights of both State employees and the State of Vermont and of Vermont State Colleges and the University of Vermont in their relations with each other, to provide orderly and peaceful procedures for preventing the interference by either with the legitimate rights of the other, to protect the rights of individual employees in their relations with labor organizations, to define and proscribe practices on the part of labor, the State of Vermont, the Vermont State Colleges, and the University of Vermont which are harmful to the general welfare, and to protect the rights of the public in connection with labor disputes. (Added 1969, No. 113, § 1; amended 1987, No. 177 (Adj. Sess.), § 1.)