Southwest pilots told the company that they did not want PBS. Generally speaking, PBS will only work well IF you, the pilots, have 110% control over the system and the language. PBS means $$$ to MAG management, and nothing at all to the pilots. Really read up on that before you accept it.
I'll relate what happened at PCL when we had PBS rammed down our throat. There was an LOA from our 99 agreement (aka the current contract) that allowed for PBS. One of the stipulations was it needed a 6 month successful parallel bidding period with the paper bidding process. Well, of the "6 months" the company decided to go with, maybe ONE of them could have been deemed "successful" by the pilot group as the rest of them weren't even contractually compliant. Well, the company put it in, and there's a standing grievance on it right now (to my knowledge, it's still in the grievance process).
As a result, the powers that be decided that the scheduling section of our contract was null and void, being replaced by PBS.....unless THEY needed something from that section. PBS has triggered more grievances than I thought possible. Vacations are ALL screwed up. The way it used to work is you bid, you got your line, and any trips scheduled during the time your vacation fell were removed. When PBS started, vacation was added in first, so the system bid around your vacation. Which means you might get the last 16 days of the month off, but you would fly close to the limit the first half of the month with VERY few days off. Training events used to work similar to vacation. If you were awarded a trip per your bid that fell on a training event, you got bought off that. Now, PBS builds training in first, so you don't get more than 3.75 hours a day for training, whereas before we had the opportunity to bid a high credit 2-3 day and get the credit for that. Same problems with days off and front/back loading of the schedule occur with training as with vacation.
Another issue that has just crept up is military leave. The only way the company can seem to get it to work is if you turn in your orders for leave BEFORE bidding. Guess what? PBS bids around that now, too, so you get the same thing -- work your butt off before leave....then work your butt off for the military while on military leave. I'll let blee relate his little horror story of fighting to get paid correctly, too.
We MIGHT have even had a new contract a few months ago if the company was willing to give on some PBS issues. Instead, we actually went FURTHER apart thanks to their stance on PBS. It basically takes a lot of things the pilots have control over QoL wise with paper bidding out of their hands and puts it in the company's hands.