Smith

FLINT, Michigan (CNN) -- General Motors Corp. Chairman Jack Smith said Friday that "nothing is more important" to his company than settling strikes at two Flint parts plants which have idled 90 percent of its production capacity.

"We didn't want this strike that's taking place here in Flint. It hurt our employees, their families, customers, suppliers and shareholders," Smith said in remarks made during a commencement address at Kettering University. "We are committed to reaching a settlement as quickly as possible."

But negotiations to end the strikes recessed Friday with no hint of progress. They were scheduled to resume Saturday, but prospects of a quick settlement appeared dim.

A virtual shutdown of GM's North American operations could come as soon as Sunday unless the company can strike a bargain with the United Auto Workers union to end the walkouts. The only significant production left would be at GM's Saturn division plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

Ohio, Mexico plants close Friday

Only about 9,200 workers have gone on strike in Flint. But the two plants where they work supply key parts to other GM plants in the United States, Mexico and Canada. And it is the lack of parts that has forced the company to shut down more than 110 GM facilities and lay off about 105,000 workers.

On Friday, GM closed its largest U.S. assembly plant, in Lordstown, Ohio, idling 5,000 workers. It also closed a plant in Silao, Mexico, that makes trucks and sport utility vehicles, leaving nearly 2,500 employees jobless.

The UAW members walked off their jobs to protest plans by GM to send some work outside of the United States to plants where labor is cheaper. Work rules and health and safety concerns are also issues in the strike.

While saying that GM was committed to ending the strike, Smith also made it clear in his speech Friday that GM will take steps it deems necessary to make the company more efficient and better able to respond to a rapidly changing global marketplace.

"While every organization needs to preserve the appropriate aspects of its past, change is inevitable and unavoidable, even here in Flint," he said.

Clinton: Hoping for 'timely' resolution

On Friday, President Clinton urged both sides to resolve the strike as quickly as possible.

"They have, apparently, very legitimate and substantial differences, but we've got a collective bargaining system, which I support, and I think they can work it out. And I hope they do it in a timely fashion," Clinton said. ( 180K/17 sec. AIFF or WAV sound)

A musicians union shows its support for striking workers in Flint, Michigan

But White House spokesman Mike McCurry downplayed any possibility that Clinton would intervene in the strike under the auspices of the federal Taft-Hartley Act. For that to happen, the health and safety of the nation would have to be imperiled, he said.

"The threshold is very, very high," McCurry said. "What we are doing right now is monitoring the situation and looking to see what kind of impact there has been on national health and safety."

However, some economists fear that the shutdown of an industrial titan such as GM and the layoff of more than 100,000 workers could slow the growth of the entire U.S. economy, compounding the blow from Asia's economic crisis.

Workers idled by a strike are ineligible for supplemental income from GM, which means that they will instead file for unemployment benefits. The Labor Department said new claims for unemployment filed for the week ending June 13 jumped by 13,000, the first noticeable effect from the strikes.

Detroit Bureau Chief Ed Garsten and Reuters contributed to this report.

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