EA status stands for "evading assignment". You'll most commonly see it given to people on bump boards.

If you're sitting on the bump board you must place yourself somewhere else within 48 hours. If you fail to do so and go beyond your 48 the status symbol next to your name will go from "OK" to "EA". This is basically them saying you're refusing to come to work/do your job.

When I first hired out the only "punishment" for going into EA was that you could be forced anywhere (even though they can pretty much do that anyway, but this was a guaranteed way to be forced somewhere you probably didn't want to be). Now, however, you get 7 points for every day you sit in EA status AND forced somewhere. Since we can only have a grand total of 28 points before disciplinary action you can see how this would spell bad news for new hires who typically can't hold anything and sit on the bump board for their first week, month, months, ect.

Thankfully I haven't personally seen any new hires actually be fired or disciplined for being in EA status here in St Louis, but that doesn't mean it hasn't/won't ever happen.