When any dispute arises between any person, firm, corporation, or association of employers and their employees or association of employees, of this state, except employers or employees having trade relations directly or indirectly based upon interstate trade relations operating through or by state or international boards of conciliation, which has or is likely to cause a strike or lockout, involving ten or more wage earners, and which does or is likely to interfere with the due and ordinary course of business, or which menaces the public peace, or which jeopardizes the welfare of the community, and the parties thereto are unable to adjust the same, either or both parties to the dispute, or the mayor of the city, or the chairperson of the board of supervisors of the county in which said employment is carried on, or on petition of any twenty-five citizens thereof over the age of eighteen years, or the labor commissioner, after investigation, may make written application to the governor for the appointment of a board of arbitration and conciliation, to which board such dispute may be referred under the provisions of this chapter; and the manager of the business of any person, firm, corporation, or association of such employers, or any organization representing such employees, or if such employees are not members of any organization, then a majority of such employees affected may make the application as provided in this chapter, but in no case shall more than twenty employees be required to join in such application.