 Galarza worked as a labor organizer and a key leader in laying the groundwork for the emergence in California of the farm labor movement.Galarza began organizing farm workers in California in 1948 as research and education director of the American Federation of Labor's short-lived National Farm Labor Union.Galarza organized a 1947 strike against the DiGiorgio Corporation in Arvin, California that lasted 30 months, and entangled the company and the union in suits and counter-suits for the following 15 years.