26It must therefore be concluded that the employment relationship which recognised dockers have with the undertakings for which they perform dock work is characterised by the fact that they perform the work in question for and under the direction of each of those undertakings, so that they must be regarded as ‘workers’ within the meaning of Article 48 of the EC Treaty (now, after amendment, Article 39 EC), as interpreted by the case-law of the Court (see, as regards the definition of ‘worker’, the Merci judgment, paragraph 13). Since they are, for the duration of that relationship, incorporated into the undertakings concerned and thus form an economic unit with each of them, dockers do not therefore in themselves constitute ‘undertakings’ within the meaning of Community competition law.
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