LANSING, MI -- The year was 1979 and Michigan classrooms in more than 25 districts were empty.

At least 10,000 Michigan teachers were on strike, asking for higher wages and resulting in closed schools. This was a big strike, but the occurrence wasn't uncommon.

"When I was going to public school there was lots of strikes," said Michigan Education Association spokesman David Crim, who remembers at least five or six affecting him in the 60's and 70's.

Strikes by public employees like teachers, police and municipal workers have been illegal since the state first passed the Hutchinson Act in 1947. But despite strikes having been illegal, these actions have a rich history in the state.

In light of recent "sick-outs" that have resulted in closures at Detroit Public Schools, the legislature is considering law changes that would crack down on strikes and strike-like activity.

In 1965 state legislature overhauled the law and turned it into the Public Employment Relations Act, but in the process took away penalties -- in other words, public employees couldn't strike, but they also weren't subject to automatic discharge if they did strike.

"However, a legal strategy was devised that basically entailed going to court and proving that the school board was breaking the law by not bargaining in good faith," Crim said. "When we were able to prove that, the court refused to issue an injunction forcing the teachers back to the classroom."

The balance of power may have shifted, but teachers didn't always win.

In 1971 near Michigan's thumb a town called Reese had a teacher strike. The district fired all 44 of its teachers. In 1974 the Associated Press reported a similar tale in Dearborn Heights, where Crestwood School District fired 184 teachers.

But sometimes the balance of power does tip toward the employees, said University of Michigan Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations Assistant Research Scientist Roland Zullo.

"Going back to police officers it used to be called 'blue flu,'" Zullo said. "It tends to happen in situations where it would be very very difficult for the administrators to replace the workers."

He said in some states, especially southern states, public sector workers still aren't allowed to unionize. In the majority of states that do allow public sectors to unionize, strikes are banned.

"Often public services are deemed essential to the public health and welfare. So that's why often what states do is they allow workers to have unions but they don't allow them to strike," Zullo said.

In Michigan, we almost did allow it. In 1980 then-Gov. Bill Milliken vetoed a bill that would have allowed public employees to strike under certain circumstances.

Nick Ciaramitaro, now a legislative liaison with AFSCME, was in the legislature at the time. He said it was one part Milliken objected to, and he was hopeful that the legislature would put a new bill before him. The proposal fizzled.

"That was back in the 80s, obviously the world's a lot different today. I don't think anything like that is likely to get a lot of consideration, but it was considered at that time," Ciaramitaro said.

In fact, legislators later moved to tighten strike prohibitions. In 1994, Public Act 112 placed stricter prohibitions on public school employee strikes specifically. Since that time, strikes have become a rarity in the state.

But now something similar is happening in Detroit. In actions that have closed dozens of schools over the past several weeks, Detroit teachers aren't striking. They're calling in sick and acting independently of the teacher's union. It's what Zullo says is called a "wildcat strike" -- where teachers are acting independently from the formal teachers' union.

"What's remarkable about this particular set of wildcat stoppages is how much support the teachers are getting from other teachers and the community," Zullo said. "I think the people of Detroit have just had it up to here with the conditions of DPS."

Nicole Conaway, a high school math teacher at DPS's East English Village Preparatory Academy, said she and fellow teachers are getting growing community support for sick-out actions that aim to call attention to deplorable conditions within the school system.

She sees the main barrier to kids learning as the emergency management system that's controlled Detroit schools for years.

"That is the main barrier. We need democracy back for Detroit so we can maintain a public school system," Conaway said.

She is one of the teachers butting up against district management in court today, where the district is hoping to stop teachers from causing further school-closing sick-outs.

Ciaramitaro said the emergency management system has impeded union-district relations by putting a damper on bargaining. The emergency management law specifically states that an emergency manager may "reject, modify, or terminate 1 or more terms and conditions of an existing collective bargaining agreement."

With that provision "you take away the ability for people to sit down rationally, talk and work out their problems," Ciaramitaro said.

Conaway said the teachers' actions have gotten more and more support from parents. But in the legislature, it's a different story. House Speaker Kevin Cotter has said the teachers' actions fail to put students first.

In the Senate, Senate Education Committee Chair Phil Pavlov last week introduced a bill to crack down on the sick-outs.

"It really shortens up the amount of time in the process where strike conditions can be identified... it takes out any questionable ambiguity that would be surrounding what a strike is. We clearly know in Detroit that these are strike conditions," Pavlov said.

He said teachers doing these sick-outs were acting illegally right now. Pavlov's proposed legislation would also give "teeth" and more enforcement options to the law, he said.

That concept is supported by the Mackinac Center, a free market think tank based in Midland. Jarrett Skorup, a policy analyst at the Mackinac Center, said strikes and the Detroit teachers' activity was illegal and the law needed to be strengthened.

In Lansing, the 1979 teachers' strike took more than a month -- with 30,650 kids out of the classroom -- to resolve. In tackling the 2016 sick-outs, Pavlov and other legislators are hoping to get Detroit kids consistently back in classrooms as soon as possible.

Emily Lawler is a Capitol reporter on MLive's statewide Impact Team. You can reach her at elawler@mlive.com, subscribe to her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter: @emilyjanelawler.