After days of failed negotiations, Government yesterday obtained a Supreme Court injunction aimed at getting public employees back to work.

And in a separate move, Police at the airport arrested 15 picketers, including several BIU division chiefs, and charged them with obstruction for blocking access to the terminal.

Bermuda Industrial Union president Mr. Ottiwell Simmons MP said last night that he and other union officials had not seen the injunction. The walk-out would continue today, he said, and so would picketing at the airport and docks.

The injunction orders the BIU to stop all illegal activity connected to the Government. It affects the walkout by workers in Marine and Ports, Public Transportation and Works and Engineering, but does not apply to dock and airport workers not employed by Government.

Mr. Simmons said yesterday's moves were a concerted effort to break the union and destroy its leadership. The fight to force Bermuda Forwarders to take back 15 men who lost their jobs last year will continue, he said.

Transport-related divisions will meet at BIU headquarters at 8:30 a.m. today.

The general membership of the union will meet at 5 p.m., Mr. Simmons said.

But Premier the Hon. Sir John Swan said Government could not allow "60,000 innocent people'' and the tourists upon whom Bermuda depends to be harmed "in furtherance of a dispute in which they are not remotely involved.'' Government had tried to resolve the dispute and its efforts will continue, he said.

"But we aren't going to sit back and let the law be broken. "We have given people a chance. Now the whole Island is at risk, and if you leave it alone the whole of Bermuda will go down the tubes. That will not be allowed to happen.'' A meeting between the BIU, Bermuda Forwarders president Mr. Toby Kempe, and Labour Minister the Hon. John Irving Pearman took place yesterday morning. Mr.

Pearman said talks were cordial but "there was no agreement on how the impasse might be concluded''.

The dispute started last October, when Bermuda Forwarders refused to take back 15 workers who had walked off the job twice over the firing of a BIU shop steward.

A non-binding board of inquiry later supported the sacking of the shop steward but recommended the 15 men return to their jobs. The company refused to follow the recommendations.

How many of these men still want jobs at Bermuda Forwarders is uncertain. Mr.

Simmons said he does not know how many are still unemployed, but the belief is widespread that 13 of the men have new jobs.

That is probably an exaggeration, knowledgeable sources said yesterday: Several have found jobs and not all want to return to Bermuda Forwarders, but others are out of work and some have only part-time jobs. A group of the men attempted to start their own trucking firm last month, but were unsuccessful.

In the last week the dispute has expanded rapidly beyond the 15 former Bermuda Forwarders workers. Last week it spread to a walkout on the docks and at the airport, followed by all Government transport-related workers.

Picketers walking slowly back and forth across the airport on Sunday had traffic backed up well past the Swizzle Inn, and tourists were walking in the pouring rain with their bags to the airport.

Many planes were delayed up to an hour and a half, and airline officials reported extremely angry and wet tourists. It also caused delays of connecting flights.

Yesterday morning, airline representatives held a meeting with Transport Minister the Hon Ralph Marshall. They warned him "it had to stop'', sources said, "because it jeopardised the continued operation of the airlines to Bermuda''.

The representatives said their airlines had warned them that the long delays could not be tolerated and were causing problems on other routes as well.

The airlines said they could not tolerate problems of "passenger safety'' that arose when passengers were forced to walk through traffic on the Causeway, carrying their bags in the rain.

Traffic quickly sped up after Police moved in yesterday and no late airline departures were reported after that.

Government officials yesterday insisted that the Police acted on their own, and not in response to pressure from the airlines or anybody else. Mr. Simmons accused the Labour Minister of getting the Police to act, but Mr. Pearman said he would not, and could not.

Government and Bermuda Forwarders "want to bust the union,'' Mr. Simmons complained.

He said the 15 arrests were especially suspicious because they included ranking BIU officers like construction division organiser Mr. Kenyetta Young, port division president Mr. Chris Furbert, hospital division president Mr.

Dennis Bascome, the president of the bus operator's division and a truckers division officer.

"It was rather clumsy, it was crude, it was certainly unnecessary,'' Mr.

Simmons said after a meeting of transport divisions last night. "I believe it was illegal. I think it was false arrest, and I think it was politically motivated.'' Bermuda Aviation Services chief executive Mr. Donald Hunter said just 21 or 22 of the company's 210 unionised workers did not show up for work yesterday and operations continued without a hitch.

On the docks, Stevedoring Services managers and a handful of union workers unloaded all refrigerated cargo from the Oleander and Somers Isle and cleared 36 containers off the docks.

Buses and ferries remained completely shut down. But enough unionised garbage workers reported for work to make up three of the 12 crews that are normally working.

TALKING TOUGH -- BIU president Mr. Ottiwell Simmons discusses the picketers' rights with Chief Insp. Larry Smith (right) and Acting Assistant Commissioner Campbell Simons during yesterday's protest at the Civil Air terminal entrance.

MOVIN' IN -- Police officers arrested 15 Bermuda Industrial Union picketers at the entrance to the Civil Air Terminal yesterday on charges of obstruction.

More than 30 officers lined the sidewalk during the labour protest.

TRASH MOUNTAIN -- Residents left without garbage collection service have taken matters into their own hands, depositing mounds of trash at the refuse plant on Marsh Folly Road.