The New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University (ILR) is an industrial relations school and one of Cornell University's statutory colleges. The school has five academic departments which include: Labor Economics, Human Resource Management, Global Labor and Work, Organizational Behavior, and Statistics & Data Science.

Established by the state legislature in 1945, the school is a statutory or contract college through the State University of New York (SUNY) system and receives funding from the State of New York. It was the world's first school for college-level study in workplace issues and remains as one of the leading institutions for industrial relations. In addition to its undergraduate curriculum, the school offers professional and doctoral degrees, as well as executive education programs.

In 1944, a coalition of leaders in American business, industry, labor, government, and education formed to establish the school. They believed that a new type of school was needed that focused on issues involving the American workplace.

More specifically, the State Legislature established the school in 1945 based on the recommendations of the New York State Joint Legislative Committee on Industrial and Labor Conditions. This committee was headed by Irving M. Ives and was originally formed in 1938. Ives, along with others in the committee, determined that a fundamental dysfunction in the relationship between management and labor was that each group brought different technical information and skills to the negotiating table and that these differences were hindering the formation of mutually favorable outcomes. The committee’s response to this observation was to recommend that the state of New York provide "a common training program" for representatives of labor and management. The committee stressed that the importance of such a training program is "not merely attendance at the same institution or in the same school, but rather mutual and cooperative analysis of the problems common to both groups." Indeed, a quote from the committee’s 1943 report adds, "The Committee believes [however] that a state-sponsored school in this state should be based upon a broader educational philosophy. One of the most important ways of improving industrial and labor relations is to bring together, in a common training program, representatives of both labor and industry."

It was the committee’s recommendation to provide common training to leaders from all perspectives of the management-labor debate. It was hoped that this common training would stabilize the negotiating table by producing leaders on all sides who have common technical information and competencies. In 1942 the committee recommended that ILR be established at Cornell (the state’s land grant institution). Two years later, formal legislative action was taken and Governor Dewey approved establishing the school.

On July 1, 1945, ILR became a going educational enterprise, charged with the mission "to improve industrial and labor conditions in the State through the provision of instruction, the conduct of research, and the dissemination of information in all aspects of industrial, labor, and public relations, affecting employers and employees."

Ives was the first dean of the school. However, soon after gaining this title he became a United States Senator for New York and left for Washington. Beginning in the summer of 1947, Martin P. Catherwood became the dean. The school was also championed by then-President of Cornell University, Edmund Ezra Day. The state of New York provided the school with generous funding. However, due to time constraints, the school soon moved into quonset huts on the Ithaca campus and later into buildings vacated by the New York State College of Veterinary Medicine.

In 1960, enrollment in the ILR school was reported to consist of 300 undergraduates and 60 graduates.