Workers' safety in resin casting?

This is my personal opinion, but I don't think Chinese companies would just up and announce what their working conditions are like on their dolly websites. To my mind, they would probably not bring up any awareness of their working condition if it's anything like what news articles are saying simply because it would be bad advertising for them and they'd be losing customers, especially western ones who would be more concerned about the matter because the news articles had brought it to their attention.

Really, the only way to know what the working conditions is truly like would actually be to travel to the places where the dolls are made and assess the situation from there. Because even if you email or post in their Q&A about this, you'd likely get an answer that you wouldn't find believable. Really, the only idea that comes to mind would be to approach a dealer, like Mint on Card, who actually travels to China to visit the dolly companies they sell dolls for, and inquire to see if they'd seen what the dolly workshops (if they'd seen them) were like. Or ask someone, like an artist who'd approached a Chinese company to cast their sculpt in resin or even a collector who'd taken the time to visit any doll company headquarters if they had seen what the condition was like.

 

I work for a Christmas ornament company that has some of their designs cast in resin in China and know that the workers who do the actual casting are in a separate building from the artists who paint them and they wear protective clothing and respirators. I know this because I personally know the head designer who visits the factories every year to negotiate the contracts. If nothing else, it makes economic sense for a manufacturer to protect its skilled workers against toxic chemicals. Just think of the time and expense of having to constantly train new people if their workers were dropping like flies. Most doll companies are much smaller than the companies that cast random ornaments and I can't imagine that they would jeopardize their own health and those of the people who work there. In a very small company, the designer and other artists probably work closely with the people who make the molds and do the casting if they don't actually do it themselves. They might not be paid as much as workers in other places, but still they are valuable skilled workers.