Class code 6217 — Excavation & Grading

This classification covers excavation and grading contractors who move earth, dig trenches, and prepare building sites using heavy equipment such as excavators, bulldozers, and skid steers. Work includes clearing and grading lots, digging foundation and utility trenches, and fine-grading for drainage and landscaping. Crews often work early in a project's timeline, setting the stage for foundation, utility, and paving trades that follow.

Payroll includes equipment operators, laborers who work alongside machinery to guide grading and shore trenches, and truck drivers hauling spoil material off-site. Because heavy equipment does most of the physical earthmoving, crew sizes on excavation jobs are often smaller relative to the ground disturbed than on other trades.

Trench collapse is one of the most serious hazards in this work, since unshored trenches can cave in with little warning. Struck-by injuries from operating equipment and ground workers being in the same area, along with rollover risk on uneven or sloped terrain, round out the leading causes of serious injury and are the main reasons this classification carries a high-risk rating.