General Laborer (Construction) - Public Works - (7514 TPV)

Company Description

San Francisco Public Works currently has vacancies for the position of General Laborer (7514) to join our Operations Division. 

Operations Division 

The Operations Division delivers essential services around the clock with street cleaning, street and sewer repair and maintenance, and repair services for civic buildings and structures. 

Operations staff also provide graffiti removal, sidewalk maintenance, and community partnerships to advance cleaning and greening initiatives, code enforcement, workforce development, and apprenticeship programs, urban forestry care and tree planting, and landscape services. 

Application Opening: Friday, October 24th, 2025

Application Deadline: Apply immediately.  Application filing will be open at least through Thursday, October 30th, 2025 and will close any time thereafter.

Compensation: $76,258 ~ $92,716 annually

Appointment Type: Temporary Provisional (TPV): This is not a permanent appointment. A provisional appointee must participate and be successful in a Civil Service examination for this classification and be selected to be considered for permanent appointment.  Provisional appointments may not exceed three (3) years. 

Job Description

Under general supervision, you will perform a variety of manual labor tasks such as removing debris from construction, maintenance, wrecking, or repair work, loading and unloading materials, supplies, furniture, and equipment. You may also be assigned to join a work crew with other crafts, operating various types of equipment and machinery, including pneumatic and hand tools associated with general construction. 

MAJOR, IMPORTANT, AND ESSENTIAL DUTIES 

As a general laborer, your duties may include but are not limited to the following: 

• Excavates trenches (using various pneumatic and hand tools, including 90-pound jackhammers) for water and sewer lines, underground utility repair, or electrical conduits; backfills and compacts excavations; and potholes transmission mains and service piping.  

• Clears culverts and stakes fabric to prevent erosion of work sites, cement, and rip-raps upstream and downstream of culverts. 

• Stabilizes embankments by building wet walls and dry walls alongside roadways and waterways. 

• Safely operates mowing equipment. 

• Serves as flag operator and sets up traffic barricades, lights, or other barriers around work sites (on streets or other locations). 

• Clears and chips vegetation, brush, and limbs; clears firebreaks, watershed roadways, v-ditches, jogging and footpaths, pipeline rights-of-way, around structures, buildings, risers, vaults, and valve lots; cuts access routes to watershed domestic utility lines and springs; removes small trees and grinds stumps. 

• Installs and maintains chain link, barbed wire, and hog wire fencing, cement watershed gate posts and chain link fence posts. 

• Loads and unloads materials, supplies, furniture, and/or equipment by hand or with booms, 

• Removes and cleans up debris resulting from construction, maintenance, wrecking, or repair work around grounds and building areas using hands, broom, shovel, wheelbarrow, etc. 

• You will work in confined spaces and assist in cleaning and flushing catch basins, septic tanks, or sewage treatment plants using shovels, hoses, and pumps to ensure proper sewer system drainage. 

• Operates and maintains pneumatic, electrical, mechanical, and hand tools, including air compressors, jackhammers, tie tampers, sandblasters, steam cleaners, hoists, drills, chain saws, cement mixers, chipping guns, weed whackers, spaders, stump grinders, fence stretchers, aerial lift buckets, and other hand tools to assist craft workers. 

• Assists in the preparation and application of concrete and asphalt to repair roads and sidewalks.  

• Applies disinfectants, de-greasers, and herbicides to streets and sidewalks.  
  Cleaning streets, sidewalks, benches, poles and plazas with motorized sidewalk sweepers, brooms, or high-pressure water hoses.  

• Cleans up illegal dumping sites, spills on city streets, and sites of accidents.  

• Use radio communication systems or other communication devices.  

• Manages a tool room, distributing tools and tracking inventory. 

• Completes forms such as work orders, daily work or field reports, and/or accident report forms. 

• Safely operate a city vehicle to access work sites. 

• Prepare surfaces for painting, remove graffiti from public/private property using a computerized color matching program, soda blaster, and/or steam cleaner.