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PASADENA – Dozens of picketers lined the sidewalk in front of a local Target store Saturday, claiming that garments sold in the chain stores are made under sweatshop conditions in Nicaragua and that workers are not paid a living wage. 

“We’re asking Target to be responsible corporate leaders,” said Marissa Nuncio of Sweatshop Watch, an Oakland-based civil rights organization. “By taking a stand and being a responsible corporation they can encourage other retailers to do the same.” 

Officials at Minneapolis-based Target Stores, a division of the Dayton-Hudson Corporation, did not return phone messages left Saturday at their headquarters. 

After a similar protest in Milwaukee in August, Patty Morris, a spokeswoman for Target Stores, said the company has performed four audits on a Nicaraguan factory this year and no evidence of abusive working conditions were found. 

About 100 protesters, many carrying signs painted with reproductions of the retailer’s bull’s-eye logo, crowded the curb on one of Pasadena’s busiest streets. They also railed against the plight that garment workers face in El Salvador, Saipan and Los Angeles sweatshops. 

They also chanted slogans and handed fliers to motorists, some of whom honked their horns in support. 

Activists said they chose to demonstrate during the holiday shopping season, which they called “the season of conscience,” to bring home their message of working conditions in garment factories. 

“During this holiday season a lot of people go shopping and don’t always take the time to think about how the products in the store are produced,” Pam Brubaker of the group Mobilization of the Human Family told a cheering crowd. “This is the purpose of the season of conscience, to help educate shoppers about sweatshop conditions.” 

Demonstrators sang protest songs set to the tune of Christmas carols, with titles like “Rest Easy Wealthy Gentlemen,” led by the musical group Billionaires for Greater Global Inequity. 

“If people realize that goods and services are being brought to them by labor that’s exploited, I don’t think a lot of people are going to be happy with that equation,” said musician Clifford Tasner, who uses the stage name Felonius Ax. “I don’t think that a lot of people want to buy goods that somebody bled to create for them.” 

“The idea is not to boycott because we don’t want these people to lose their jobs,” said Mo Menon of the United Students Against Sweatshops. “But we have power as consumers and we should use that power to pressure the corporations.” 

Shoppers leaving the store said they were not aware of the demonstrators’ allegations that garments sold at Target are made under sweatshop conditions. 

“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” said Jimmy Goeller, a software engineer vacationing from Tucson. “Realistically, I don’t think it will change my shopping habits. I wish it would, though.”