A bill designed to allow workers at companies with 11 or more employees to earn paid sick leave will not come up for debate in the coming legislative session.

The bill would have granted workers the ability to earn up to seven days of paid sick time per year, said its sponsor, Sen. Anne Haskell, D-Portland. Its failure before the state’s Legislative Council, a bipartisan panel that decides which bills advance, on Nov. 19 means it won’t go to the full legislature in the session that begins in January, she said.

Haskell said her bill was modeled after a Massachusetts law that went into effect on July 1 after voters approved it in 2014. She said the rule change is “a matter of public health” and noted that it was shot down along party lines, with Republicans opposing the requirement and Democrats favoring it.

“People are making a decision between their health and their paycheck, and they’ll take the paycheck,” Haskell said. “The people who are living paycheck to paycheck and for whom that extra day makes a big difference are people working at my local pizza shop.”

Bills on earned sick leave also died in the legislature in 2007 and 2010, but Haskell said she is hopeful the issue will eventually come back to the State House.

The 2007 bill would have allowed workers to earn up to 72 hours annually, while the 2010 bill would have required larger employers to provide an hour of paid sick leave for every 40 hours of work.

Rep. Eleanor Espling, a New Gloucester Republican who voted against the bill, said the upcoming legislative session is limited to bills that need emergency consideration, and she did not believe the sick time bill rose to that level. She added that the bill would have created a new mandate for employers if it passed.

“I think what we should do is encourage businesses to do that, not mandate it,” Espling said.