The New Jersey Senate on Monday again delayed a vote on the controversial New Jersey bill that would require temporary staffing firm employees to receive pay equal to that of directly employed workers, among other changes.

The bill, A-1474, was also pulled from Senate consideration in October because it did not have enough votes to pass. It previously passed both the New Jersey House and Senate but was given a conditional veto in September by Gov. Phil Murphy, who sent it back to the legislature with proposed changes. However, the proposed changes fell far short of what the staffing industry had hoped for, which had included removing the equal pay language.

Sen. Joe Cryan, a Union County Democrat who sponsored the bill, said at the Statehouse in Trenton the bill did not have the 21 votes necessary to pass, northjersey.com reported. He declined to say why the bill didn’t have the votes or which of his colleagues were holdouts.

Senate President Nicholas Scutari, D-Union, confirmed that he wants to try again with the bill in December, as did Cryan. The Senate is not expected back for another voting session until Dec. 22.

Alexis Bailey, the New Jersey Business and Industry Association’s VP of government affairs, said the association continues to take issue with a key provision that requires temporary workers to be paid the average compensation rate and the cash equivalent of the average cost of benefits paid to their employee counterparts.

“As a result of this, some temporary workers will be making more than permanent employees whose wages are determined by seniority and experience,” Bailey said. “There are also many logistical burdens to consider as temp agencies contract with multiple businesses that offer different benefits packages. All of this will serve to make it extremely difficult to provide jobs for temporary workers.”

The American Staffing Association has been “working very hard” after the first delay to reiterate its concerns with the legislation and talk about its alternative bill, S-3182, which is very similar to the current Massachusetts Temporary Worker Right to Know law, Toby Malara, VP of government relations at the ASA, told Staffing Industry Analysts.

“It’s something that we think not only gives the workers the protection that A-1474 does, but our version doesn’t have the operational concerns that have led us to object to this bill, so we think it is a really good compromise,” Malera said.

The ASA has worked with discussed its alternative bill with senators with positive results and will continue to do so now that the vote has been delayed again.