The Hill News

Working Americans are waiting on President Obama to lay out a bold plan for investing in jobs and infrastructure, a top labor leader will warn Wednesday.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is set to lay down a marker for the Obama administration ahead of next week's State of the Union address by urging the president to lean on expansive spending initiatives to fuel the economic recovery.

"Next week the president of the United States will give his State of the Union address," Trumka will say at a speech at the National Press Club, according to prepared remarks. "The labor movement is ready for a call to action, a call to invest in our future, to create jobs, to be the country we can and must be."

The AFL-CIO leader's been a consistent voice for more spending, a request that had been frustrated over the past two years by Republican opposition in Congress. Now that the GOP controls the House, getting approval for more spending will become eve! n more difficult.

“When we are reduced to competing to cut spending instead of deciding how to compete in the world economy and secure our future, then we are having the wrong conversation," Trumka will say.

The speech serves as a warning to both the White House and Congress about their priorities in the coming year. The Obama administration has begun to pivot in ways that concern the labor community. The president and vice president both named business-friendly figures as their new chiefs of staff, and Obama has begun talking about reining in unnecessary regulations and finding common ground with congressional Republicans on cutting spending.

"Here in Washington, we live in an Alice-in-Wonderland political climate. We have a jobs crisis that after three years is still raging, squeezing families, devastating our poorest communities and stunting the futures of young adults," Trumka will say. "Yet politicians of both parties tell us that ! we can â€" and should â€" do nothing.”

Trumka wil! l also a ddress the squeeze many unions are facing on the state level, where Republican governors have been pushing wage freezes and pension cuts with state employees, who are typically heavily unionized. Those state debates and the national conversation about jobs will dominate the next two years, the union leader will say.

"Last year’s election was fundamentally about jobs, and I believe the 2012 election will be fundamentally about jobs," the AFL-CIO leader will assert.