DETROIT — President Barack Obama said Monday that congressional Republicans must put their country ahead of their party and vote to create new jobs as he used a boisterous rally to aim a partisan barb at the opposition.

In a preview of the jobs speech he will deliver on Thursday to Congress, Pres. Obama said there are numerous roads and bridges that need rebuilding in the U.S., and over 1 million unemployed construction workers who are available to build them. He was speaking on Labor Day, the holiday that celebrates the American worker and marks the traditional end of summer.

Pres. Obama said that with widespread suffering, “the time for Washington games is over” and lawmakers must move quickly to create jobs. “But we’re not going wait for them,” he said at an annual event sponsored by the Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO. “We’re going to see if we’ve got some straight shooters in Congress. We’re going to see if congressional Republicans will put country before party.

“Show us what you’ve got,” Pres. Obama said.

Throughout the speech, the union crowd kept chanting “four more years.”